How much you’ll have for retirement if you invest $100, $500 or $1,000 a month, broken down by age (2024)

FAQs

How much will I make if I invest $1,000 a month? ›

Investing $1,000 a month for 20 years would leave you with around $687,306. The specific amount you end up with depends on your returns -- the S&P 500 has averaged 10% returns over the last 50 years. The more you invest (and the earlier), the more you can take advantage of compound growth.

If you save $100 a month for 18 years, your ending balance could be $35,400.

The $1,000 per month rule is designed to help you estimate the amount of savings required to generate a steady monthly income during retirement. According to this rule, for every $240,000 you save, you can withdraw $1,000 per month if you stick to a 5% annual withdrawal rate.

The short answer to what happens if you invest $500 a month is that you'll almost certainly build wealth over time. In fact, if you keep investing that $500 every month for 40 years, you could become a millionaire. More than a millionaire, in fact. Investing is about buying assets you believe will increase in value.

As you will see, the future value of $1,000 over 20 years can range from $1,485.95 to $190,049.64.

(Enter "$100" in the "Contribution amount" field, then select "Monthly" for the "Contribution frequency" option.) You would end up with $32,023.26 after 10 years, compounded daily (assuming 365 days a year). The interest would be $10,023.26 on total deposits of $22,000.

If you save $100 a month for 30 years, your ending balance may only come to about $197,000, assuming that same 10% return. That's a decent amount of savings -- and about $77,000 more than the average baby boomer has today, according to Northwestern Mutual. But it's a far cry from $531,000.

Investing as little as $200 a month can, if you do it consistently and invest wisely, turn into more than $150,000 in as soon as 20 years. If you keep contributing the same amount for another 20 years while generating the same average annual return on your investments, you could have more than $1.2 million.

Even with these other sources, saving $100 per month likely won't be enough to cover all of your retirement expenses. It's a start, but check at least annually to see if you can afford to bump up your contributions.

In fact, at the end of the five years, if you invest $1,000 per month you would have $83,156.62 in your investment account, according to the SIP calculator (assuming a yearly rate of return of 11.97% and quarterly compounding).

Is $500 a month good for retirement? ›

Most financial planners advise saving 10% to 15% of annual income. A savings goal of $500 a month amounts to 12% of your income, which is considered an appropriate amount for that income level.

If the average dividend yield of your portfolio is 4%, you'd need a substantial investment to generate $3,000 per month. To be precise, you'd need an investment of $900,000. This is calculated as follows: $3,000 X 12 months = $36,000 per year.

Money for a long-term goal, such as retirement, should be invested. Time allows your money to grow and bounce back from short-term market fluctuations. The potential payoff: $500 invested at a 10% return for 30 years could grow to around $10,000 before inflation, 20 times your initial investment.

Length of Investment

For example, an investor who holds their portfolio for 10 years will put $60,000 into it (10 years of investing x 12 months per year x $500 per month), while an investor who holds the same portfolio for 20 years will contribute $120,000 worth of capital.

If you start by contributing $1,000 a month to a retirement account at age 30 or younger, your savings could be worth more than $1 million by the time you retire. Here's how much you should expect to have in your account by the time you retire at 67: If you start at 20 years old you should have $2,024,222 saved.

A fixed annuity typically provides a set rate of return over a determined time period. If you have a fixed annuity with a starting principal of $10,000 and a rate of 5%, you could expect to get around $100 a month for 10 years. A variable annuity may have a rate that fluctuates depending on market performance.