Consider parking some or most of your long-term dollars in index funds<\/a>. They can make life easy, as you won’t have to study the universe of stocks (and\/or bonds), making buy-and-sell decisions. Instead, just keep adding money to one or more index funds and let their holdings do the work of growing for you over many years, if not decades.<\/p>\n Image source: Getty Images.<\/p>\n How money grows<\/p>\n The stock market has averaged<\/a> annual returns of nearly 10% over several decades. But over your investing period, it could well average more — or less. So the table below shows how your money could grow at several different growth rates:<\/p>\n Investing $1,000 monthly for<\/p>\n Growing at 8% annually<\/p>\n Growing at 10% annually<\/p>\n Growing at 12% annually<\/p>\n 5 years<\/p>\n $70,399<\/p>\n $73,261<\/p>\n $76,234<\/p>\n 10 years<\/p>\n $173,839<\/p>\n $191,249<\/p>\n $210,585<\/p>\n 15 years<\/p>\n $325,825<\/p>\n $381,270<\/p>\n $447,357<\/p>\n 20 years<\/p>\n $549,144<\/p>\n $687,300<\/p>\n $864,629<\/p>\n 25 years<\/p>\n $877,271<\/p>\n $1,180,165<\/p>\n $1,600,006<\/p>\n 30 years<\/p>\n $1,359,399<\/p>\n $1,973,928<\/p>\n $2,895,992<\/p>\n 35 years<\/p>\n $2,067,802<\/p>\n $3,252,292<\/p>\n $5,179,962<\/p>\n 40 years<\/p>\n $3,108,678<\/p>\n $5,311,111<\/p>\n $9,205,097<\/p>\n Source: Calculations by author, using Investor.gov.<\/p>\n You can see that amassing a million dollars is very achievable, as long as you have enough time and can regularly sock away some meaningful sums. You might even amass $2 million or more — and for many people, that’s a more appropriate nest egg to shoot for, especially if retirement is decades away. (It’s smart to take some time to figure out how much you’ll need for retirement<\/a> — and how you’ll get it. Each of us needs a solid retirement plan<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Nine index funds to consider<\/p>\n Here are nine promising index funds, in exchange-traded fund (ETF)<\/a> form. ETFs are funds that trade like stocks.<\/p>\n ETF<\/p>\n Recent dividend yield<\/p>\n 5-Year Avg. Annual Return<\/p>\n 10-Year Avg. Annual Return<\/p>\n 15-Year Avg. Annual Return<\/p>\n Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO)<\/p>\n 1.12%<\/p>\n 14.91%<\/p>\n 14.76%<\/p>\n 14.17%<\/p>\n Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI)<\/p>\n 1.11%<\/p>\n 13.69%<\/p>\n 14.24%<\/p>\n 13.71%<\/p>\n Vanguard Total World Stock ETF (VT)<\/p>\n 1.67%<\/p>\n 11.42%<\/p>\n 11.66%<\/p>\n 10.02%<\/p>\n Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (BND)<\/p>\n 3.78%<\/p>\n (0.38%)<\/p>\n 1.92%<\/p>\n 2.36%<\/p>\n Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD)<\/p>\n 3.74%<\/p>\n 8.56%<\/p>\n 11.46%<\/p>\n N\/A<\/p>\n Schwab US Large-Cap Growth (SCHG)<\/p>\n 0.36%<\/p>\n 16.97%<\/p>\n 18.18%<\/p>\n 16.72%<\/p>\n VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH)<\/p>\n 0.30%<\/p>\n 28.96%<\/p>\n 31.04%<\/p>\n 24.33%<\/p>\n Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK)<\/p>\n 0.53%<\/p>\n 19.89%<\/p>\n 22.53%<\/p>\n 19.50%<\/p>\n Vanguard Information Technology ETF (VGT)<\/p>\n 0.41%<\/p>\n 18.99%<\/p>\n 22.71%<\/p>\n 19.62%<\/p>\n Source: Morningstar.com, as of December 9, 2025.<\/p>\n Each of these funds tracks a different index. The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO<\/a> 0.14%), for example, tracks the S&P 500 index<\/a> of 500 of America’s biggest companies. The Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 index.<\/p>\n Today’s Change<\/p>\n (-0.14%) $-0.91<\/p>\n Current Price<\/p>\n $625.96<\/p>\n Key Data Points<\/p>\n Day’s Range<\/p>\n $624.57 – $630.56<\/p>\n 52wk Range<\/p>\n $442.80 – $634.13<\/p>\n Volume<\/p>\n 11M<\/p>\n Which funds are best for you?<\/p>\n You may be tempted to put much of your money in the funds with the fattest returns. But think twice before doing so. If there’s a stock market correction<\/a> or crash, growth stocks<\/a> will likely fall harder than other stocks.<\/p>\n Remember, too, that some of the funds above are rather concentrated. The S&P 500 fund, for example, has fully 40% of its total value in just its top 10 holdings, and recently, about 8.5% in just Nvidia stock. That will serve the fund well (and has!) as long as Nvidia is going up.<\/p>\n Note, too, that the dividend yields vary widely. If you’re looking for income, which is a solid goal, you won’t get much from more growth-oriented funds.<\/p>\n You might do well spreading your dollars across several funds such as the ones above. I included a well-regarded bond fund, as well, if you’d like some exposure to bonds.<\/p>\n Whatever you do as you aim for a million dollars by retirement, be sure to have a plan and to stick to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You might want to mix and match some of these funds — for a mix of growth and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":{"0":"post-186026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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