Is it hard to get rich? Not really, if you’re young.
It’s fun to play with financial calculators and see what might happen.
Assume you have just graduated from college, are about 22 years old, and just started your first real job. If you put $100 a month in an IRA that grows at 10% a year, you will have about $865,000 at age 65. 10% a year compound growth is about what you should expect if you invested in a no-load S&P 500 Index Fund.
So for about $23 a week or $3.30 a day, you would be close to being a millionaire.
If you contributed the full $6,000 a year allowed right now to an IRA, you would have $3,550,000. For about $16.50 a day, you would have a small fortune.
If you didn’t want to take a chance with the stock market because it goes down sometimes, you would still have over $960,000 if you could get a 5% return.
If your grandmother leaves you $10,000 in her will and you invest it for the same 43 years at 10% without adding another cent, you’d also have over $600,000 if you placed it in a tax-sheltered account.
Time and the power of compound interest are on your side. So if you’re in your twenties and want to get rich, do whatever you have to scrape together that IRA contribution. Every day you procrastinate is another day your money is not working for you.
However, most people in their twenties need money for more important things, like new cars and HDTVs. You also have school loans to pay, children to raise, and the new mortgage to pay off. But if you prioritize your life and stick to a budget, $16.50 a day is doable, although you might have to scrimp here and there.
Consider that most people spend their lives paying the freight for borrowing other people’s money. If you save and invest, other people are paying you to use your money. It’s a lot more fun to see your money working to help you get rich than having to work yourself.
Think about the effect expenditures have on your financial future. If you bought a late-model used car instead of a new one, you would probably save $10,000 or more depending on the model. That $10,000, as noted above, would grow to almost $600,000 by the time you’re 65 if invested in a tax-sheltered account.
Now look at it from the opposite angle, the extra money you spend on that new car you yearn for and must have now will cost you $600,000 by the time you’re 65, and the car has long since been recycled into tin cans.
I’d probably buy the car too, but it’s useful to consider the consequences.
It gets harder to get rich slowly as you get older. If you wait until you’re 32 and put away $6,000 at 10%, you would have about $1,300,000, still a respectable amount.
At 42, you’d only be able to accumulate approximately $475,000. If you’re 50 and can start putting $7,000 away today, you’ll have around $225,000 at age 65.
Everyone knows that Social Security is not going to allow for a comfortable retirement. Even if the plan can continue to pay out forever, which is questionable right now, the money you receive will be far from generous and is subject to taxation. And you might have a good pension plan at work now, but will you be able to hold your current job to retirement?
If you have a Roth IRA, you can withdraw the money tax-free after age 59 ½. Imagine having a million tax-free dollars you can play with. It will well make up for the small sacrifices you have to make to get rich.
No matter what your age, start saving what you can now – today. Even if you only amass $100,000, you’ll be better off than most people entering retirement.
I don’t think a million dollars is likely the right target for a 22 year old today. That will only have the buying power of $280,000 by the time they reach 65 due to inflation. At a 4% withdrawal rate they will only get $11,200 worth of today’s dollars each year to live on. That’s cat food sandwich money. A million today is worth nearly four times as much as a million will be in 43 years.
You are indeed correct in thinking that $1 million will not be near enough. But as most Americans today have nothing saved for retirement $1 million would be an improvement. That is one reason why I showed the example of investing the maximum in today’s funds for an IRA as well. That shows that even without a 401(k) someone can save over $3 million. Thank you for the comment and for making a case that $1 million will be nowhere near enough.
But it won’t be all that hard to save much more either because average wages should also go up nearly four times over that time period. A million dollars right now, added to Social Security is plenty to fund a fat lifestyle with a 4% withdrawal rate, depending on how much you paid into Social Security. In my case my wife and I are estimated to receive $65 K just from Social Security alone in a few years. Add 4% of a million to that and it is over six figures. But you are right, there aren’t that many people retiring with a million dollars because they didn’t avail themselves of the time they had, or in many cases struggled to make a living wage.
I think 10% growth per year is too high. A more conservative estimate is 8%.
I agree that a low-cost index of 8% would be appropriate but the historic rate is still near 10% since 1926 for the S&P 500 with dividends reinvested.
I loved your blogpost and totally agree with it and the 10% assumptions- it’s not unrealistic!