AND get an annual 10% return. It is surprising how many people investing their own money cannot get 10% return in a good market.
You do not have to get a 10% return to grow your money and become wealthy, but it also isn't that hard to get on average if you can stomach the down years.
My parents panicked and sold everything at the bottom during a downturn and turned to a high priced commission salesman who sold them an annuity.
They did not tell me for years. When I found out, I was angry, of course, but sad. It drastically affected their retirement years in a negative way. I tried to stay calm, pulled up the mutual fund price on that day on my laptop, and calculated what the current value of that would have been. My mother is still alive, and that was a half million dollar mistake at this point, now paying out a tiny little annuity.
When I showed them, my mother, still, years later, with a sense of panic in her voice, said, "But we could have lost everything!"
It was very difficult to explain to my mother that a broadly based mutual fund cannot "lose everything" outside of some world ending calamity, in which case your stock portfolio will not matter.
I blame myself for not realizing their tolerance for risk and advising them to put a high percentage into bonds, but, ugh, did you see the return on bonds from the turn of the century until interest rates went up?
Anyway, I digress. Back on point. 10.64% is the 100 year annual return of the S&P 500. That does not mean that the next 100 years will also be the same, but it does underscore my point that 10% is not so difficult to hit. Just plunk your money every paycheck into a low cost index fund or ETF (like VFIAX or VOO) consistently and on schedule. The market goes down, good! You are buying cheaper! That's the "buy low" part of buy low, sell high. That is the time to buy everything you can afford, not sell or sit it out.
VFIAX has an expense ratio of 0.04% v. an average of 0.78% for similar funds.
VFIAX has a 5 year return of 15.00%
The one year is 24.51%, but such short term returns matter nothing to our discussion here. Just put the money in there on autopilot. Have it automatically go out of your account and in there, for years, decades.
And kick your HR person in the rear end if there are not such low cost index options in your company's 401(k).