This is a calculator that you can use to determine how much money you can accumulate using interest % and no. of years with either a fixed sum or regular payments.

https://www.investor.gov/financial-tools-calculators/calculators/compound-interest-calculator

This is a Fed Funds History Rate chart showing the rates and causes of the changes in the Fed Rates.

https://www.thebalance.com/fed-funds-rate-history-highs-lows-3306135

Before 2001 using an average of 6% for an average work life span of 40 years you could put money in guaranteed CD's and Treasuries and accumulate a very nice nest egg for your retirement.

Since 2001 your possible accumulation using guaranteed funds has dropped dramatically which will reduce many workers ability to enjoy a comfortable retirement.

Even those in retirement now or are working and have savings in guaranteed accounts are not keeping up with inflation.

If you had put $100,000 in a 30 year Treasury @ 6% compounded semi-annually you would have accumulated $589,631.

Today that $100,000 at 1.25% will give you $145,329 in 30 years IF interest rates never go up.

The younger generations are going to have to save all they can to live as well in retirement as their parents or receive a nice inheritance or get a government pension that exceeds SS.

I know many will say invest in the stock market but realistically it's pretty complicated for most to understand or to accept the risk.

This is why you invest with a qualified financial person into a good retirement account.

Investing in the stock market can be good, but most working people need to be very wary of too much exposure by owning individual stocks. That can greatly increase risk when you're (like most of us) the last to know when something is about to happen in the market. Be careful paying experts to invest for you - the wrong deal will have them making a lot more out of it than you, and that's no good. If you want to invest in the market, consider mutual funds. These are "buckets" with a variety of stocks in them so that bad mistakes by any one company won't trash your investment. There are mutual funds that track the investments in the S&P 500, for instance, or the Russell 2000, as examples. These are "non-managed" funds, so they don't have a management fee either. If you have (or open) an account with a large fiduciary like Vanguard or Fidelity, you can invest in funds such as these for $0 in overhead in some cases.

Everybody's not going to invest in the stock market in any way and most that do will be through company 401K's that many don't have access to.

Plus we need savers that put money in Banks and S&L's to provide money for loans and to buy US Bonds and Treasuries so that China doesn't end up owning us. Most people are risk averse and prefer guaranteed savings and that includes some well heeled individuals. What did Ross Perot do with the money he received from GM stock when he left them? He bought guaranteed long term Treasuries.

Americans are the largest owners of the US debt and we need to keep it that way and we need to pay a decent interest rate on their savings.

TRS
IRA
ROTH IRA
403b
Mutual Funds
Basic Savings
A few stocks and some invested in Cypto


With all that said in lost a significant amount the last two weeks even keeping it simple.

Here is some history on the market and % of investors. Read all the way down and you'll find more detail oriented info.

https://www.creditdonkey.com/average-stock-market-return.html

Stock market is risky and the return is never as good as most investors try to tell you it is. I remember a Merrill Lynch guy coming to our senior seminar class my last year of college and he ran a bunch of numbers assuming a 10% annual return. I started working 13 years ago and the Dow Jones was at 13,500 in June when I started. Today it's at 21,600. If the market had averaged 10% per year over that span, it would be at 46,605. So the Dow is less than half of that, and even at it's highest ever, was barely over half that.

We finally decided to get into rental houses as a retirement plan. My old boss has 40 of them, retired in his early 50s, goes on a vacation every month, plays golf a couple times a week, and hasn't touched his 401k or either of his pension plans. Now he's a straight up slum lord and it's not for everyone, it requires a decent amount of cash up front, and it ties you to an area really long term, but it is a fairly stable, low risk plan if you're not trying to get rich.

If you're under 50 and trying to use treasuries and CDs, you're going to be working til you're 80.

Overall the stock market is still great place to park your money. Using your example the S&P is up 60% since june 2007,and until the last month it was up 117%(feb 2020) And had you bought SPY in 1995 at $52 per share you would have realized a whopping 548 % gain. (again at recent $337 february highs). That doesn't even include dividends and a DRIP program,which over 25 years would be significant. Sure,inflation took a share of those gains,but still..

What is the average stock market return over the last 10 years?
The last decade provided an average return of 6.88% in the stock market. The lower return takes into account the tremendous loss the market took in 2008.

What is the average investor's return on mutual funds?
The average investor greatly underperforms the stock market. Over the last 30 years, the average investor saw a return of 3.66%, whereas the S&P 500 had an average return of 6.73%.

What percentage of people lose money in the stock market on average?
According to Openfolio, only 33% of investors lost money in the stock market in 2016. However, looking at 2015, only 30% of investors made money. While the gain in 2016 was only an average 5%, it's better than any savings account will provide.

What percentage of people invest in the stock market?
Today, just about half of Americans invest in stocks. This number is down about 10% from the early 2000s, when more than 60% of Americans invested in the stock market.

What percent of the stock market is owned by individual investors?
Households own an average of 38% of the U.S. equities market.

What percentage of millennials invest in stocks?
Only 20% of millennials invest in stocks. This means 80% of 18-34-year-olds are not investing. Breaking this down, it means 60 million people are not investing. The biggest reason they aren't investing isn't student loans, though. It's due to a lack of understanding of the stock market. Another large reason is lack of cash.

What percentage of Generation X invest in stocks?
51% of Generation X invest in stocks. This may come as a surprise as Gen Xers have had to live through two stock market crashes and the housing crisis.

That's where most retail self-directed investors get themselves into trouble,trying to cherry-pick individual names,and trying to time the market. Most guys work 8-5 jobs,have a family to look after,hobbies to enjoy,when are they suppose to have time to study the stock market? The answer is they don't. Best to just buy an ETF that tracks the indices, SPY,QQQ,etc and don't touch it for 25 years!

I'm not saying you can't make money. I'm just saying there are better options, especially considering the risk.

Only time I've really done well on the stock market was with AVXL - an alzheimers drug company. They were manipulating the market with their financing company a few years ago. I bought at $2 and again at $4, watched it go to $15, and then sold at $10 as it tanked back to $2, and then for 2-3 years, it would go up to $4 and then back to $2 on a cycle every few months. So I started buying at $2 and selling at $3.50 and did well there. But that eventually stopped and it's back to poor returns on more standard investment options and that's when we got more interested in real estate. My in-laws tried for several years to talk us into buying Holly Frontier for their dividends, but I'm glad right now we didn't do that. Value has tanked along with everything else, and the dividend will soon be cut back I'm sure, if it hasn't already.

Patriot07, one other thing to consider...laziness. My brother and actually my parents had rental homes. They sold them because they said it was a PIA. They even used management companies. A house needs a lot of maintenance. You can have renters that don’t pay or are always late on payments. Then there are the ones that trash it or make changes without the owner’s approval. Then add in the fact you have to pay taxes not only for the property taxes but also on the rental income. Also if you sell one then you have to pay capital gains taxes because it was an investment property and not a primary residence.

Lazy way to invest...buy the S&P 500. Very solid returns year over year. Instant diversity because you are basically buying into the biggest 500 companies. No management fees (like mutual funds). It doesn’t pay dividends so unless you sell some in that year, no taxes to claim or pay. Very small one time purchase fee (a commission) if any at all because a lot of brokerage firms have zero commissions now (or very very low commissions). An example say you buy $20k worth of SPY a firm may charge you like $25.00 for a commission (if any at all). What else in life can you buy as an investment for $20k and only pay a $25.00 fee? And last, simple to monitor how you are doing. You will know what you paid for it when you buy it. So from then on it’s only one number to watch. And last if you do a periodic investing into it, you don’t care if it’s up or down...when it’s down, great you’re buying more at a lower price. And when it’s up, great you are making money!!

And one other thing...you can park it in a margin account. This lets you borrow against it anytime you want. It’s instant credit! And still make money on your own loan! Say you get 10-12% return and you pay 8% interest on your margin loan, you’re still making money!! And with margin loans there are no payments due! You can pay it off as much and as often as you wish. Heck you can go years and never actually make a payment on your loan!

Simple actions to assure long term financial security:

1. Focus energy and time on maximizing your professional development and success.

2. Take maximum advantage of retirement accounts available to you through employer or otherwise and invest in target date low cost index funds.

3. Create an annual budget that will generate meaningful savings (in addition to retirement account investing) and stick to it.

4. Keep wife happy because divorce destroys dollars.

That strategy will only work if the S & P returns 8% that year though correct? (to cover your interest payment). Many,many years it wont return 8%. 2020 will probably be one. Interesting strategy but it seems to have a lot of moving parts and susceptible to margin calls. I've received a few margin calls in my years of trading and it's not a pleasant experience.

Truth is it's going to be tough going forward. Govt. has to keep interest rates low so they can print more money to keep up with payments. China is still the big buyer of American bonds and will probably own us at some point.
There are examples of this in North Africa for anyone that takes the time to read about it.

Even with a president that's only true goal is to make the market go up, still as you can see the market will be much more volatile in the future. There will always be something out there that no one sees and the market will react while your at work without any time to do anything.

Young people today are gong to suffer for the ever increasing debt of the country. Higher taxes at Federal, state, & county levels. As each level tries to back away from funding (such as we have seen with colleges) and ultimately the young will pay the price.