So, your first 100K is the hardest part of this journey. So let me show you how this, on average, will take 7 to 10 years.

Once you get to your first 100K, let me show you how easy it is to get to over a million and even 2 million, 3 million. It doesn't really matter.

It's a matter of time at that point. So, in investing, you want to get to your first 100,000 as quick as possible.

People find that to be very hard, and I'll show you why. But once you get there, your first million is actually quite easy.

Now, for this instance, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take $7,000 per year. I prefer Roth IRAs; that's the maximum contribution if you're under the age of 50 that you can make in 2024.

You could also do this in a 401k, a 403b, other tax-advantaged vehicles.

It could be a traditional account. I like Roth accounts because whenever I pull the money out, it's tax-free. The S&P 500 has generally returned a 10.7% year-over-year annualized rate of return over the last 30 years.

So, if we adjust that for inflation, so at 10.7% minus 2 to 4%, somewhere around 7 or 8% per year on average.

So, we're going to be conservative and use that 7%. So, over that 5-year period of investing $7,000 per year, I've contributed $35,000 to the account.

I now have $40,000 because of the compounding effect, and I'm now growing at about $3,000 per year.

At 10 years, I've contributed $70,000 to the account, but it's grown to $9 $97,000.

You see, there's not really much of a difference between these two values. It's now starting to return $7,000 a year in growth.

If you follow this through, let's go to 35 years out. I've contributed $245,000 to the account. The account's worth now $968,000.

It grew $723,000. At that point, the account's now growing at a rate of about $68,000 per year. So, if I go from 35 years to 40 years, I've only added another $35,000, but the money has grown from $968,000 to now $1.4 million.

The account is growing now at $98,000 per year. 5 years later, I'm at 2 million.

From 45 to 50, it's grown another $846,000. So it's now almost $3 million, and it's now earning $199,000 per year.

If we talk about 7% annualized rate of return, really all the time is up here. So the quicker you get to that first 100K, that's where it really explodes.

So this growth, once you get to a large enough number, it's actually contributing more money than you're contributing each year.

So when you're contributing $7,000, it's contributing $7,000, you know, $68,000, $98,000, $140,000, $199,000 per year.

Now people will say this is a really long time to wait, and I agree with that. Get started as early as possible.

Here's something to note: even $100 at 20 years old, that $100 is going to grow. So $100 times the 1.07, so 7 is that 7%, raised to the 45 power, 45 years of compounding.

Effectively, it's uh, $2,100 at 65. If that same person just waits to their 40, puts $100 away, that $100 grows to approximately $543 at 65.

So if you started at 20 versus 40 with the same amount of money being contributed each month, effectively you have four times the amount of money at retirement.

So time is on your side. If you're older, you have to effectively contribute four times the amount of money. Invest early, even in small amounts. People will say, well, I don't have any money, I can't invest.

The average American, and this typically is in the lower 40%, so if someone is considered in a lower income or a lower-middle income, they spend approximately $2,400 per year on lottery, gambling, alcohol, and tobacco.

So if you took those vices and actually put that in here, that could grow to a considerable amount of money.

There's some crazy ways of getting money.

I know one of my aunts, she actually sells plasma. Uh, she makes like $800 to $1,000 a month on that. So that's an extra, you know, $8,000, $9,000 a year.

I know someone else in my family, they actually uh, provide blood for research and other things, and they get uh, $200 to $300 each time they sit down a couple times a month.

Uh, and generally they don't even get blood drawn.

There's many weird ways of making money. They also have like, rent a friend and some other crazy things.

They have side hustles. You can start YouTube channels, you could do delivery services. There's all kinds of things. I know people that have made $100,000 a year just mowing people's grass around the neighborhood.

Pretty much anytime there's something to be done and people don't like to do it, you can get paid to do it.

If you're interested in making more money, saving, and investing, subscribe. Thank you for watching and have a great day.

Why the first $100K is hard, but to get to a million dollars is easy after that

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