How much do I need to invest to make $500 a month?
Some experts recommend withdrawing 4% each year from your retirement accounts. 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.
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.
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.
If you want to bring home an average of $100 per month ($1,200/year) in super safe dividend income, simply invest $13,800 (split equally, three ways) into the following ultra-high-yield stocks, which sport an average yield of 8.71%!
How that works, in practice: Let's say you invest $200 every month for 10 years and earn a 6% average annual return. At the end of the 10-year period, you'll have $33,300. Of that amount, $24,200 is money you've contributed — those $200 monthly contributions — and $9,100 is interest you've earned on your investment.
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.
If you want to start earning $300 as soon as possible, you need to invest $60,000 in stocks that can give you a 6% dividend yield. Now is a ripe time, as many dividend stocks are trading at their lows as interest rate hikes have made their balance sheet debt expensive.
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.
Today, it is very possible to earn an average of $400 per month of passive income (or $4,800 annualized). Right now, the average dividend yield on the S&P/TSX 60 Index is around 3.11%. If you just bought the index, you would need to invest $154,340 to earn an average of $400 per month.
So, what do you need to do to have $1 million after five years? If you have never invested before (you have zero balance in your investment account), you need to invest approximately $12,821 at the end of every month for the next five years.
What will $100 dollars be worth in 20 years?
| Discount Rate | Present Value | Future Value |
|---|---|---|
| 25% | $100 | $8,673.62 |
| 26% | $100 | $10,172.11 |
| 27% | $100 | $11,914.46 |
| 28% | $100 | $13,937.97 |
Dividend-paying Stocks
Shares of public companies that split profits with shareholders by paying cash dividends yield between 2% and 6% a year. With that in mind, putting $250,000 into low-yielding dividend stocks or $83,333 into high-yielding shares will get your $500 a month.
To make $2,000 in dividend income, the investment amount and rate of return must be $400,000 and 6%, respectively. If the rate is lower, say 4%, the upfront investment is $600,000.
Thus, it will take approximately 8.17 years.
If you invest $20 per week in a traditional savings account, you will likely earn a low, fixed interest rate, typically around 0.05% to 0.1%. Over time, the interest earned on your savings will compound, helping your balance grow.
Contributing just $500 per month to a retirement investment fund is enough to get you to millionaire status in time. If you are already contributing that amount to a 401(k) or IRA, you may well be on your way to reaching millionaire status.
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.
The 50-30-20 rule recommends putting 50% of your money toward needs, 30% toward wants, and 20% toward savings. The savings category also includes money you will need to realize your future goals. Let's take a closer look at each category.
One of the popular budgeting guidelines is the 50/30/20 rule. It says that 50% of your earnings should go to necessities, 30% to discretionary items and 20% to savings. For example, if you earn $8,000 per month, you should save $1,600 of it.
| Rate of return | 10 years | 40 years |
|---|---|---|
| 4% | $72,000 | $570,200 |
| 6% | $79,000 | $928,600 |
| 8% | $86,900 | $1,554,300 |
| 10% | $95,600 | $2,655,600 |
What if I invest $200 a month for 20 years?
Bottom Line. If you can invest $200 each and every month and achieve a 10% annual return, in 20 years you'll have more than $150,000 and, after another 20 years, more than $1.2 million. Your actual rate of return may vary, and you'll also be affected by taxes, fees and other influences.
- Know Where Your Money Is Going. Knowing where your money is going is the first step of any successful financial plan. ...
- Financially Educate Yourself. ...
- Pay Down Debt. ...
- Have Multiple Sources of Income. ...
- Increase Your 'Grow' Category.
No matter your age, there is never a wrong time to start investing. Let's take a look at three hypothetical examples below.
Investing $1,000 per month for 30 years at a 6% rate of return hypothetically will give you an investment portfolio worth more than $1 million. This result is hypothetical because it doesn't take into account taxes, fees, varying rates of return and other variables, such as extended market downturns.
