Post #2488 by elann on the Mechanical Investing board

Investment Strategies / Mechanical Investing

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Meet Joe Investor. Ten years ago, he was 48 years old, and had way more hair than he does today. But he'd also been living below his means, and his retirement account had $600K worth of VOO (the Vanguard S&P 500 Index ETF). He was also able to keep saving $800/mo from his paycheck, and have that invested entirely in that same index ETF in his 401K every month. Yes, that's every month. Rain or shine. Pandemic or no pandemic. No market timing.

Let's say that Joe decided that his financial freedom/early retirement number was $2 million. How much would he have in his 401K today?

To answer that question, we just need to go to this excellent S&P 500 DCA calculator, plug in the start and end dates, the initial amount, and the monthly adds.

https://ofdollarsanddata.com/sp500-dca-calculator/

Using August 2014 as the start month, we find that Joe's 401K has grown to $2,193,422. He can now cash out, go to a 60/40 allocation and retire early and happily at age 58.

Just so we're clear, the S&P total return over the last ten years was 325% (I checked out of curiosity). So the initial $600K did practically all the work. The additional $800 per month is just a thin layer of icing on the cake.

Elan

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