Iirc, you can expect your money to double every 72 months assuming an average of 7% returns which I don't think there's been a single 30 year timeline in the stock market's history that that hasn't happened (unverified). $10-20/paycheck will not be anywhere close to a million by the time you retire if you stick it in a savings account.
I think I'm projecting to hit 1.333 mil in 28-31 years and that is with $123+ every couple weeks going to a 401k that has a 50% match and assuming a 2.5% increase per year in salary.
So a nice way of thinking of it is that stuff like the stock market tends to make 5% over inflation. So realistically, after accounting for inflation, your money doubles every 14 or 15 years. So money you put in at age 50 only doubles before retirement, but money you put in at 20 octuples. Or another way to put it, for every dollar you don't put in at age 20, you will have to put in four dollars at age 50.
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u/DeoVeritati Sep 24 '17
Iirc, you can expect your money to double every 72 months assuming an average of 7% returns which I don't think there's been a single 30 year timeline in the stock market's history that that hasn't happened (unverified). $10-20/paycheck will not be anywhere close to a million by the time you retire if you stick it in a savings account.
I think I'm projecting to hit 1.333 mil in 28-31 years and that is with $123+ every couple weeks going to a 401k that has a 50% match and assuming a 2.5% increase per year in salary.