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.
With a 10% yield and monthly payout schedule, you can get to $500 a month with only $60,000 invested. That is, $6,000 per year paid on a monthly basis. Unfortunately, most stocks don't have yields anywhere near 10%. Many do have high enough yields to get you to $500 a month with diligent savings, but don't pay monthly.
To generate $500 a month in passive income you may need to invest between $83,333 and $250,000, depending on the asset and investment type you select. In addition to yield, you'll want to consider safety, liquidity and convenience when selecting the investments you'll employ to provide monthly passive income.
Rate of return | 10 years | 30 years |
---|---|---|
4% | $72,000 | $336,500 |
6% | $79,000 | $474,300 |
8% | $86,900 | $679,700 |
10% | $95,600 | $987,000 |
Here's what a $1,000 monthly investment could do for you
If you earn this 10% average annual return over a full two decades while putting in $1,000 per month during that entire time, you could end up with a nest egg of $687,306.72.
Investing $100 per month, with an average return rate of 10%, will yield $200,000 after 30 years. Due to compound interest, your investment will yield $535,000 after 40 years. These numbers can grow exponentially with an extra $100. If you make a monthly investment of $200, your 30-year yield will be close to $400,000.
A well-constructed dividend portfolio could potentially yield anywhere from 2% to 8% per year. This means, to earn $3,000 monthly from dividend stocks, the required initial investment could range from $450,000 to $1.8 million, depending on the yield. Furthermore, potential capital gains can add to your total returns.
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.
You could survive but not thrive. Without landing a low-income lottery apartment or having other sources of assistance for food and health benefits $900/month would be difficult to live off of in Los Angeles as of May 2017.
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How many years it will take you to double your money if you invest $500 at an interest rate of 8% per year?
For example, if an investment scheme promises an 8% annual compounded rate of return, it will take approximately nine years (72 / 8 = 9) to double the invested money.
The good news is you would need less than that to get to $1 million if you invest $200 per month. If you were to invest $200 per month over the course of the next 30 years, that would equate to a total investment of $72,000.
You can deposit money to save for long-term goals – buying a house in 10 years – or relatively shorter-term goals, such as a wedding in two years. $1,000 at 0.01 percent APY will only be $1,001 at the end of 10 years. But $1,000 at 5 percent APY will be $1,629 after 10 years.
If you invest $1,000 per month, you'll have $1 million in 25.5 years. Data source: Author's calculations.
The Bottom Line
Investing $100 a month adds up over time, especially with compound interest. Making small sacrifices every day to consistently add $100 to your stock investments every month will benefit you in the long run. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. "Understanding Deposit Insurance."
While not all monthly income stocks are worth buying, some stand out for all the right reasons. If you want to generate $300 in super-safe monthly dividend income, all you'd need to do is invest $37,800 (split equally, three ways) into the following three ultra-high-yield stocks, which sport an average yield of 9.52%!
- High-yield savings accounts.
- Certificates of deposit (CDs)
- Bonds.
- Funds.
- Stocks.
- Alternative investments and cryptocurrencies.
- Real estate.
You plan to invest $100 per month for five years and expect a 6% return. In this case, you would contribute $6,000 over your investment timeline. At the end of the term, your portfolio would be worth $6,949. With that, your portfolio would earn around $950 in returns during your five years of contributions.
Once you have $1 million in assets, you can look seriously at living entirely off the returns of a portfolio. After all, the S&P 500 alone averages 10% returns per year. Setting aside taxes and down-year investment portfolio management, a $1 million index fund could provide $100,000 annually.
How much to invest to make $4,000 a month?
But even at 9.5%, we're talking about a middle-class income of $4,000 per month on an investment of just a touch over $500K. Below, I'll reveal how to start building a portfolio that could get you an even bigger income stream than this today.
Investment Return | Future Value of 500 in 10 Years |
---|---|
5.75% | 875 |
6% | 895 |
6.25% | 917 |
6.5% | 939 |
To generate $5,000 per month in dividends, you would need a portfolio value of approximately $1 million invested in stocks with an average dividend yield of 5%. For example, Johnson & Johnson stock currently yields 2.7% annually. $1 million invested would generate about $27,000 per year or $2,250 per month.
Living on $2,000 per month is doable, but you won't be able to live just anywhere. This is important because at the time of writing the average Social Security benefit paid is $1,701 per month.
According to one source, a couple with two kids managed to live on $2,000 per month by spending $750 on mortgage, $350 on food, $100 on car insurance and gas each, $100 on utilities, $450 on health insurance and $20 on entertainment.
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