How much do you need to invest in S&P 500 to become a millionaire?
If the S&P 500 outperforms its historical average and generates, say, a 12% annual return, you would reach $1 million in 26 years by investing $500 a month.
If the S&P 500 outperforms its historical average and generates, say, a 12% annual return, you would reach $1 million in 26 years by investing $500 a month.
One way to become a millionaire
Over its history, the S&P 500 has generated an average annual return of 9%, including re-invested dividends. At that rate, even a middle-class income is enough to become a millionaire over time. $500 a month, for example, is less than 10% of the median U.S. household's monthly income.
All that matters is how patient you are and which S&P 500 stocks you buy. Even if you only have $1 and never invest another penny, you can be a millionaire in 30 years. It's just that you'd need to hit a home run S&P 500 stock — which returns at least 58.5% — each year. That's a tall order, yes.
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.
With returns often above 10%, you'd need to invest around $360,000 to reach your monthly goal of $3,000.
In 1980, had you invested a mere $1,000 in what went on to become the top-performing stock of S&P 500, then you would be sitting on a cool $1.2 million today.
Too many people are paid a lot of money to tell investors that yields like that are impossible. But the truth is you can get a 9.5% yield today--and even more. But even at 9.5%, we're talking about a middle-class income of $4,000 per month on an investment of just a touch over $500K.
Keep in mind, yields vary based on the investment. Calculate the Investment Needed: To earn $1,000 per month, or $12,000 per year, at a 3% yield, you'd need to invest a total of about $400,000.
Assuming an average annual return rate of about 10% (a typical historical average), a $10,000 investment in the S&P 500 could potentially grow to approximately $25,937 over 10 years.
What if I invested $1000 in S&P 500 10 years ago?
A $1000 investment made in November 2013 would be worth $5,574.88, or a gain of 457.49%, as of November 16, 2023, according to our calculations. This return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation. Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 150.41% and gold's return of 46.17% over the same time frame.
Does the S&P 500 Pay Dividends? The S&P 500 is an index, so it does not pay dividends; however, there are mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track the index, which you can invest in. If the companies in these funds pay dividends, you'll receive yours based on how many shares of the funds you hold.
Meanwhile, if you only invest in S&P 500 ETFs, you won't beat the broad market. Rather, you can expect your portfolio's performance to be in line with that of the broad market. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. See, over the past 50 years, the S&P 500 has delivered an average annual 10% return.
Time is your most valuable resource when investing, so getting started early is often more important than investing hundreds of dollars per month. With as little as $100 per month, it's possible to build an investment portfolio worth hundreds of thousands of dollars or more while minimizing risk.
$10,000 invested in the S&P 500 at the beginning of 2000 would have grown to $32,527 over 20 years — an average return of 6.07% per year.
Diversification is an important factor, and you'll want to balance having too much in one type of asset. For example, many experts recommend having an allocation to large stocks such as those in an S&P 500 index fund as well as an allocation to medium- and small-cap stocks.
Suppose you're starting from scratch and have no savings. You'd need to invest around $13,000 per month to save a million dollars in five years, assuming a 7% annual rate of return and 3% inflation rate. For a rate of return of 5%, you'd need to save around $14,700 per month.
To generate $500 a month, you might need to build your investments to $150,000. Taking out 4% each year would amount to $6,000, which comes to $500 a month.
We'll play it safe and assume you get an annual return of 8%. If you invest $1,000 per month, you'll have $1 million in 25.5 years. Data source: Author's calculations.
Don't discount monthly contributions
Over the past 20 years, the index has gained a total average annual return of around 10%. If you initially invested $10,000 and added $100 per month, you'd have $136,000 today. Image source: Investor.gov. For those who did the math, yes, you added $24,000 over those 20 years.
What is the 5 year return of the S&P 500?
S&P 500 5 Year Return is at 79.20%, compared to 90.27% last month and 44.37% last year. This is higher than the long term average of 44.93%. The S&P 500 5 Year Return is the investment return received for a 5 year period, excluding dividends, when holding the S&P 500 index.
$1,000 at 0.01 percent APY will only be $1,001 at the end of 10 years. But $1,000 at 5 percent APY will be $1,629 after 10 years.
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Let's say you want to become a millionaire in five years. If you're starting from scratch, online millionaire calculators (which return a variety of results given the same inputs) estimate that you'll need to save anywhere from $13,000 to $15,500 a month and invest it wisely enough to earn an average of 10% a year.
