A great way to grow 100K into a million is through a diversified investment portfolio. This can include exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for broad market exposure, dividend stocks for steady income, and growth stocks for higher potential returns.
Passive Growth Over 25 Years
The timeline for achieving this goal depends on your returns. For example, a 10% average annual rate of return could transform $100,000 into $1 million in approximately 25 years, while an 8% return might require around 30 years.
So, sticking with an index fund is a good bet for most. If you put $100,000 to work in an S&P 500 index fund, and it returns its average 6.5% real compound annual return, it'll take less than 37 years for you to reach $1 million in today's dollars.
In order to hit your goal of $1 million in 10 years, SmartAsset's savings calculator estimates that you would need to save around $7,900 per month. This is if you're just putting your money into a high-yield savings account with an average annual percentage yield (APY) of 1.10%.
If you are starting from scratch, you will need to invest about $4,757 at the end of every month for 10 years. Suppose you already have $100,000. Then you will only need $3,390 at the end of every month to become a millionaire in 10 years.
The easiest way to become a millionaire is to take advantage of compounding by starting to save money as early in your working life as possible. The earlier you save, the more interest you accumulate. And you'll earn more money on the interest you earn. That's the power of compounding interest.
“The primary levers to accumulate $500,000 in 10 years are investing more, spending less in retirement, or delaying retirement (including part-time work). Ten years allows for compounding to work in your favor. This goal requires careful planning and long-term strategy, not quick fixes.
Once you have $1 million in assets, you can look seriously at living entirely off the returns of a portfolio. After all, the S&P 500 alone averages 10% returns per year. Setting aside taxes and down-year investment portfolio management, a $1 million index fund could provide $100,000 annually.
No matter your age, there is never a wrong time to start investing.
How long will it take to turn 500k into $1 million? The time it takes to invest half turn 500k into $1 million depends on the investment return and the amount of time invested. If invested with an average annual return of 7%, it would take around 15 years to turn 500k into $1 million.
With $100,000 you should budget for a retirement income of around $5,000 to $8,000 on top of Social Security, depending on how you have invested your money. Much more than this will likely cause you to run out of money within 25 – 30 years, which is potentially within the lifespan of the average retiree.
Years it Takes to Double
So, to use this formula for the $100,000 investment mentioned above, with a 6% rate of return, you can determine that your money will double in 11.9 years, which is close to the 12 years you'd get if you simply divided 72 by 6.
If you inherit $100,000, you have a lot of options. You can pay off your highest-interest debts, save money for emergencies, or give some to charity. You might consider using it as a down payment on a house or adding it to your child's college fund.
With returns often above 10%, you'd need to invest around $360,000 to reach your monthly goal of $3,000.
Conventional wisdom says that, in your younger years, you should be investing as aggressively as possible as long as it's not beyond your comfort level.
One common benchmark is to have two times your annual salary in net worth by age 35. So, for example, say that you earn the U.S. median income of $74,500. This means that you will want to have $740,500 saved up by age 67. To reach this goal, at age 35 you may want to have about $149,000 in savings.
Low-income people may retire by cutting their expenses, downsizing their homes, taking Social Security benefits early, and/or applying for financial assistance through government benefit programs.
At the current Treasury rate of 4.3%, a $1 million portfolio would generate about $43,000 per year, or roughly $3,500 per month. With your Social Security payments that would generate about $6,000, again enough to live comfortably in most places.
As we have established, retiring on $500k is entirely feasible. With the addition of Social Security benefits, the possibility of retiring with $500k becomes even more possible. In retirement, Social Security benefits can provide an additional $1,800 per month, on average.
Bank Savings Accounts
As noted above, the average rate on savings accounts as of February 3rd 2021, is 0.05% APY. A million-dollar deposit with that APY would generate $500 of interest after one year ($1,000,000 X 0.0005 = $500). If left to compound monthly for 10 years, it would generate $5,011.27.
In 2022, about 46% of households reported any savings in retirement accounts. Twenty-six percent had saved more than $100,000, and 9% had more than $500,000.