If you want to grow your portfolio to over $1 million, you can accomplish that even without having a huge amount of money to invest today. Steadily adding to your investment over time can allow you to save and invest at the same time. Not only are you effectively growing your savings, but you're putting the money to work immediately, rather than having it sit in your bank account and potentially earning just a minimal return.
The challenge can be in finding the right investments to continue to pile money into each month, to ensure that they're fairly safe, and have the potential to generate significant returns in the long run.
There are a couple of solid Vanguard exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that can be excellent go-to investments that you can build your portfolio around. Both the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI +0.14%) and the Vanguard S&P 500 Growth ETF (VOOG +0.33%) are solid options that can turn $300-per-month investments into over $1 million after a period of 34 years.
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1. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF
The Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund is an easy, no-brainer option for investors. As the name suggests, it gives you a position in virtually the entire stock market. While it doesn't hold every single stock, it can certainly feel that way -- its portfolio includes more than 3,500 stocks. Its largest position is in tech giant Nvidia, which accounts for over 7% of its overall holdings. But generally, this is a fairly diversified investment.
With this ETF, you're getting a wide range of stocks spanning many different sectors. Tech accounts for just under 40% of holdings, followed by consumer discretionary stocks at 14%, industrial at 12%, and financials at 10% -- that's the only other sector in double digits.
What's great about the ETF is that its expense ratio is just 0.03%, which means fees are minimal. Over the past decade, the fund has performed similarly to the S&P 500 (^GSPC +0.19%), which has averaged returns of around 10% per year for decades.
NYSEMKT: VTI
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Assuming the fund can continue to perform similarly with the S&P 500, then that can be sufficient to turn a $300 monthly investment in this ETF into at least $1 million after a period of 34 years.
2. Vanguard S&P 500 Growth ETF
Another Vanguard fund that you may want to consider putting money into each year is the Vanguard S&P 500 Growth ETF. Its expense ratio is slightly higher at 0.07%, but it remains fairly low overall.
What's great about this ETF is that it focuses on the growth stocks within the S&P 500. The index is already comprised of the leading companies on the U.S. markets, and this ETF carves out a smaller subset of that group. That gives you the safety of knowing you have a position in the S&P 500, but with more of a focus on growth. Instead of 500 stocks, the fund gives you exposure to 217 stocks (as of Oct. 31).
That focus on growth has paid off for investors. Over the past 10 years, this ETF has generated returns of around 315% versus 210% for the Total Stock Market ETF and 224% for the overall S&P 500.
NYSEMKT: VOOG
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There is a bit more risk with this fund, as tech stocks account for roughly 44% of its overall position and Nvidia makes up more than 15% of the entire portfolio. For risk-averse investors, that may be an untenable situation. But if your focus is on the long term, that may still not be a big concern, as having less diversification is often the trade-off when pursuing more of a growth strategy and focusing on the best of the best.
This ETF has the potential to generate superior gains than the Total Stock Market ETF due to its focus on growth, but investors should consider the added risk that comes with this fund.
