Moneywise and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue from the links below.
While joining the millionaire club may be out of reach for many young Americans, the power of compound interest can make it possible.
It’s simple: You invest a small amount of money each month into a low-cost index fund. When you earn dividends, you automatically reinvest those earnings to buy more shares, and your returns grow over time.
But there’s a problem, says personal finance YouTuber Mark Tilbury: Miracles only really happen back You have invested your first $100,000.
“Don’t worry about making millions,” Tilbury said. “Instead, focus on the first $100,000, because after that, your net worth is going to be crazy.”
But Tilbury wasn’t the first to notice the milestone.
Billionaire investor Charlie Munger is often credited with touting the importance of the first $100,000, once describing it as “ab-but you gotta do it” because “after that, you can kind of relax a little bit.”
But for young Americans today, reaching the $100,000 milestone is difficult—especially when you factor in the increasing cost of living and sky-high home prices. A survey conducted by Politico last month showed that approximately 56% of Americans believe the cost of living is too high(1).
While it may take you longer to reach this milestone than previous generations, it’s still worth pursuing.
Here’s why your first $100,000 is so important and how to get it fast.
Once you hit $100,000, “compound interest isn’t so bad anymore,” Tilbury said. “Getting this money as quickly as possible is key. […] Once you reach this point, you will almost inevitably become rich if you only invest in low-cost index funds. “
To achieve this, Tilbury recommends people follow what he calls the “growth method”:
gram: Take control of your finances.
reply: Ground your investments.
oh: Optimize your tax management.
Width: Clear your debt.
Telephone: Discover additional revenue streams.
Hour: Highly self-disciplined.
Learn more: Warren Buffett turned $9,800 into a $150B fortune using 8 solid, repeatable money rules. Start using them to get rich (and stay rich) today.”
Taking control of your finances is essential to achieving long-term financial stability and achieving your goals. According to Tilbury, there’s only one way to take control of your finances – a budget. Once you’ve assessed your budget, there may even be ways to cut some unnecessary funds and avoid unnecessary spending.
For example, according to CNET’s annual subscription survey(2), the average American spends nearly $1,080 per year on subscriptions alone, with about $200 of that wasted on unused subscriptions. You can save hundreds of dollars a year simply by canceling subscriptions you no longer use—money that can be used to invest toward your $100,000 goal.
Budgeting apps like Rocket Money can be a great tool for tracking your spending and achieving your financial goals.
The app tracks all your spending every month (including subscriptions) so you always know where your money is going. Additionally, their concierge service allows you to easily identify and cancel unwanted subscriptions.
Rocket Money’s Financial Goals feature automates your savings, helping you build savings in the background without any extra effort.
For a small fee, their concierge service can even negotiate lower rates on monthly bills like cell phone and cable TV bills.
When building a portfolio, Tilbury advocates a “grounded investing” model in which you prioritize investing a certain amount of money each month, whether it’s $50 or $500.
One way to get grounded in investing is through automated portfolios offered by Acorns.
No matter how careful you are with your budget, spending money is inevitable. But with tools like Acorns, an automated savings and investing app, you can anchor your investments as you spend them.
Acorns helps you build your portfolio by rounding every purchase on your credit or debit card to the nearest dollar. From that point on, Acorns automatically invests any extra change into a diversified ETF portfolio. This way, even your day-to-day expenses become part of your consistent investing strategy, helping you stay invested and grow your wealth over time.
If you sign up today, you’ll receive a $20 sign-up bonus to help get you started on your investing journey.
Another way to stay financially grounded is to diversify outside of the stock market, and gold can be a solid choice, especially when saving for retirement.
Gold – often hailed as a safe-haven asset during difficult economic times – is the best-performing asset in 2025. Gold prices hit an all-time high of over $4,300 per ounce back in October, rising 65% by the end of the year (3).
Gold could be a valuable asset amid rising tariff uncertainty. Goldman Sachs predicts that the price of gold will reach US$4,900 per ounce by the end of 2026(4).
“Gold is now an institutional asset and is seen as a hedge against ‘everything,’” Tim Seymour told CNBC (5).
A gold IRA is an individual retirement account that allows you to invest in physical gold and other precious metals.
One way to invest in gold that offers significant tax benefits is to open a gold IRA with help from Tol Metals.
A gold IRA allows investors to hold physical gold or gold-related assets in a retirement account, thus combining the tax advantages of an IRA with the protective benefits of investing in gold, making it an attractive option for those looking to hedge their retirement funds against economic uncertainty.
To learn more, this free information guide contains details on how to get up to $20,000 in free metal with qualifying purchases.
Once your money is working for you, you can optimize your tax management by claiming all available tax credits and deductions, maximizing your tax-advantaged retirement accounts and tax-deferred savings accounts, or even starting a business and taking advantage of write-offs.
A qualified financial advisor can help you address all of these questions and more. With Advisor.com, you can find the advisor that best suits your needs – whether it’s the financial services they can provide you or the fees they charge you.
Advisor.com is a free service that helps you find a financial advisor with whom you can work together to develop a plan to achieve your financial goals. With a carefully curated list of the best choices for you from thousands of databases, you’ll get a pre-screened, trusted financial advisor.
You can then schedule a free, no-obligation consultation to see if they’re a good fit for you.
In order to build a solid financial foundation and move closer to achieving high net worth, eliminating debt should be a top priority. For example, according to LendingTree, the current average annual percentage rate (APR) for new credit cards is a whopping 24.92% (6).
Carrying high-interest debt can seriously hinder your ability to grow your wealth and secure your financial future.
The personal finance YouTuber recommends starting a side hustle to diversify and increase your income. If you’re looking for a side hustle that’s low-effort and potentially highly rewarding, real estate may be your answer.
Tilbury recently posted on X about how he spent the proceeds from his latest business deal. “I made enough money from that deal to buy a rental unit, which gave me a lot of passive income,” he said.
If you want to generate investment income from the real estate market, there are many investment opportunities without directly finding and purchasing properties yourself.
For example, crowdfunding platforms like Arrived allow you to enter the real estate market for as little as $100.
Arrived provides you with SEC-qualified rental home and vacation rental investment stocks, curated and vetted based on their appreciation and income potential.
Backed by world-class investors like Jeff Bezos, Arrived makes it easy to add these properties to your portfolio, no matter your income level. Its flexible investment amounts and streamlined process allow accredited and non-accredited investors to take advantage of this inflation-hedged asset class without any additional work on your part.
Another option is mogul, which allows you to invest in the top 1% of single-family rental properties in the country.
The tycoon’s team, founded by former Goldman Sachs analysts, scrutinizes each property to ensure they can provide returns of at least 12%, even in an economic downturn. Overall, the platform’s average annual IRR is 18.8%. Their cash-on-cash returns average between 10% and 12% per year.
You can earn monthly rental income, as well as real-time capital appreciation and tax benefits, without having to make a large down payment or make 3 a.m. calls to your tenants.
Each investment is secured by real assets and is not dependent on the viability of the platform. Each property is held by a separate Propco LLC, so investors own the property, not the platform.
Getting started is easy – just sign up for an account and browse available properties. Once you verify your information with their team, you can invest like a tycoon in just a few clicks.
By practicing more self-discipline, reaching this financial milestone can put your net worth on an upward trajectory. Tilbury stresses that you need to “find your inner discipline” to put all of these steps into practice.
“Discipline is the currency of success,” Tilbury said. “The more you mint, the richer your future will be.”
The first step is to save money – saving money requires discipline.
One way to start saving is with a Wealthfront Cash Account, which helps you build an investing foundation with high interest rates and easy access.
The Wealthfront Cash Account offers a base variable APR of 3.25%, but new customers can get a 0.65% boost for the first three months, for a total APR of 3.90% offered by the bank on your uninvested cash. That’s eight times the national deposit savings rate, according to the FDIC’s December report.
With no minimum balance or account fees, and 24/7 withdrawals and free domestic wire transfers, your funds are always available. In addition, the FDIC insures Wealthfront cash account balances up to $8 million through program banks.
We rely only on vetted sources and reliable third-party reports. For more information, see our [editorial ethics and guidelines].
Politics (1); Technology Information Network (2); Apmex (3); Jintuo (4); CNBC TV-YouTube (5); Lending Tree (6)
This article provides information only and should not be considered advice. It is provided without any warranty of any kind.
