In this era where salaries can’t keep up with the cost of living, saving money seems to be increasingly difficult, let alone saving up to a million.
I often hear younger friends around me lamenting, “Why can’t I save up to a million!”
If you’re facing the same dilemma and frequently read my articles, you’re probably curious whether investing in VOO and QQQ can help you achieve this.
To address this question, my answer is YES, and it’s quite easy too. You just need to follow these four simple steps below!
Don’t delay, let’s see what these four steps are!
Plan for VOO and QQQ
Firstly, you need to determine your investment plan for VOO and QQQ.
Although the goal is the same, which is to accumulate 1 million, everyone’s approach varies.
Some are more aggressive, aiming to accumulate it rapidly within 3 years, hence setting aside 1,000 each month. Others may have constraints and can only allocate 100 for investment, envisioning a longer period to achieve the goal.
Therefore, establish your initial plan, typically in the form of “Within X years, investing X thousand or X hundred per month“, to proceed to the next step.
Invest periodically
Next, it’s time to start investing.
Here, we opt for regular investment, considering that you may not have much money available. Through regular investment in VOO and QQQ, it’s a way to indirectly force yourself to save, allowing you to start building some assets.
Moreover, whether tangible or intangible, there will be a reminder nudging you, “It’s time, money needs to be ready!” This compels you to control spending for this purpose.
My current brokerage provides the function to invest periodically, and the same function also can be found on Interactive Brokers, which calls Recurring Investment.
Hold them tightly, not to be affected by others
Now that we’ve officially started investing, congratulations on taking the most crucial step toward accumulating assets with VOO and QQQ.
But it’s not over yet. You still need to fend off attacks from all directions, particularly those coming from financial news and social media. This is the most important step.
For those who are just starting to invest, it’s common to frequently check their account balance on apps, hoping it’s a bit higher than the day before, or obsessively monitor stock price fluctuations, fearing sudden drops (even around 1%) or negative news.
This is when financial news and social media come in to disturb you.
You may feel agitated by stock price volatility and seek some “calming remedies” to soothe yourself. So, you start reading various financial news and discussions on platforms like Reddit.
Typically, the outcome is that the more you read, the more agitated you become because everyone’s opinions differ.
Worse yet, due to a moment of weakness, you might find someone’s argument convincing and decide to sell your stocks. Then, when the stock suddenly surges, you regret it and buy it back, missing out on potential gains.
Therefore, try to reduce exposure to such information, decrease the frequency of feeling agitated, and minimize the chances of making mistakes. You don’t need to trade like those so-called “professional investors”; just focus on protecting your holdings of VOO and QQQ.
Enhance your investment amount periodically
Lastly, there’s one more step: you must regularly increase your investment amount.
Typically, companies issue year-end bonuses and performance bonuses, offer regular salary adjustments, or you may move to a higher-paying position. To reach your goals faster, you need to allocate all these bonuses and salary increases into your regular investment plan on VOO and QQQ (unless you’re dealing with the wrong company, of course).
Alternatively, you can review your expenses to see if there are areas where you’re overspending, such as buying too many clothes, joining courses just to follow trends, indulging in too many expensive meals, or having a spendthrift partner. Once you make significant improvements in these areas, please allocate the saved money into your regular investment plan.
Even if it’s just an additional $100, it will help you accumulate $1 million more quickly.
Conclusion
Wanting to accumulate $1 million through investing in VOO and QQQ is actually quite simple. All you need to do is set up your investment plan, invest regularly through dollar-cost averaging, and consistently increase your investment amount.
However, there’s one more crucial point: how to avoid being influenced by media and social platforms, and instead, hold onto your positions firmly. The plethora of information bombarding us every day can easily distract us and lead to unnecessary actions. Therefore, try to minimize exposure to such information to stay focused and reach your goals faster.