Here's How Saving $10 per Day for 30 Years Can Create a $1 Million Portfolio

You might think trying to grow your portfolio to $1 million or more is unattainable, and that it’s too difficult to do so. But if you aim for small wins and savings, it becomes a much more plausible scenario to envision. Eating out less, switching utility or cellphone providers, or buying private label products rather than the big brands are some ways you can achieve incremental savings on a regular basis.

Just saving and investing $10 per day can be enough to eventually lead to a portfolio that grows to at least $1 million in size. Here’s how that can work.

Saving $10 per day is the same as putting aside $3,650 per year

If you were to think about having to save and invest $3,650 per year, that amount may seem difficult, especially amid inflation. But if you break it down into smaller chunks and aim to save $300 per month or $10 per day, it can be far more achievable. And it also puts into perspective just how costly those seemingly innocent and modest daily expenses can be. Depending on how much you spend on coffee or eating out each day, avoiding some of those costs or trading down to cheaper options could be enough to help you achieve that much in savings.

And if you’re able to save $3,650 per year and do that over the long term, then you can be well on your way to setting up a strong retirement fund. After 20 years of saving that much, you will have put aside $73,000. And after 30 years, the total would be nearly $110,000. That’s nowhere near $1 million, but this is where investing that savings can make an enormous difference.

A top Vanguard fund can help you earn market-beating returns

If you can save $10 per day or approximately $300 per month, you’ll be better off putting that money to work right away. That means putting it into an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that can help grow your savings without putting it at much risk. ETFs offer good diversification and can enable you to earn great long-run returns.

One ETF that is popular with growth investors is the Vanguard Growth Index Fund ETF (VUG 0.80%). As the name suggests, it focuses on growth stocks. There are 183 stocks in the fund, with the bulk of its allocation in tech stocks representing nearly 58% of the fund’s portfolio. Consumer discretionary stocks make up the next-biggest sector, accounting for more than 18% of the Vanguard fund’s holdings. By giving you a diverse mix of the top growth stocks in the world, including Nvidia and Amazon, the fund can be a great place to invest money every month, especially given its razor-thin expense ratio of just 0.04%.

Over the past 20 years, the fund has generated total returns (which include dividend payments) of more than 900% and it has vastly outperformed the S&P 500.

VUG Total Return Level data by YCharts

Investing in the Vanguard fund for 30 years can result in a portfolio worth over $1 million

The Vanguard ETF’s roughly 920% return over the past two decades averages out to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 12.3%. The S&P 500, by comparison, has averaged a CAGR of about 10.7%.

Assuming that those rates hold up over the long term, here’s how a $10/day or $300/month investment into the Vanguard fund would grow over the years, and how that would compare to just mirroring the S&P 500.

Calculations by author.

While it may seem like a modest difference in growth rates, the difference in balances can prove to be substantial over a very long period. This is why investing in the growth-oriented Vanguard fund can be particularly powerful. The potential for it to continue to outperform the S&P 500 can make it an ideal place to allocate your savings on a regular basis.

It is important, however, to remember that future returns are never a guarantee and that they will likely be different than the estimates above. But by investing in growth stocks, you can give yourself great odds of success in outperforming the market over the long haul.