The Laziest Way to Make $1,000,000 (10 Minutes a Year)

October 14, 2026April 28, 2026 by Rishi Vamdatt · Passed the CFP® Exam at 16

Make $1,000,000 in 10 Minutes a Year (Here’s How)

Table of Contents

Interactive Learning Experience: Timing the Market

Buying low and selling high sounds obvious. In this app, trade for twenty turns without knowing what comes next, and then see what rule you were really following!

Timing the Market

You invest $6,000 a year for 20 years, and so does a robot sitting next to you. The robot will never touch its buttons. You get to decide, every year, whether your money spends the next year in the market or in cash earning 4.5%.

You

—

The robot

—

In the market, always

Figures as of January 2026. Each year is drawn at random with an average return of 10% and a swing of 18% either side, which is roughly how the US stock market has behaved over long stretches. Cash earns 4.5%. The 500 replays use the same settings and a fresh sequence of years every time, so a run that beats the robot is a real result and not a trick. Nothing here is a forecast.

Year {n} of {total} Twenty years later Your money is in the market Your money is in cash Nothing has happened yet. Where does the money spend its first year? Where does the money spend next year? The market returned {ret} last year, and you were in it. The market returned {ret} last year. You were in cash, so you got {cash} instead. You The robot Middle outcome of your rule Where your rule landed across 500 markets Play a year to start the lines. Your balance against the robot's across {years} years, ending at {you} and {bot}. The range your rule produced across {sims} markets, with the robot's middle result and your own run marked. You finished {gap} ahead of the robot. That happened. The question worth asking is whether it happens again, which is what the rule below is for. You finished {gap} behind the robot, which never made a single decision all century. Every year you spent in cash was a year the market could not pay you. You and the robot finished level. You stayed in the market the whole time, which is exactly what the robot did, so there was nothing to separate you. You moved to cash after years that returned about {exit} or worse, and you moved back in after years that returned about {entry} or better. You moved to cash after years that returned about {exit} or worse, and you never went back in. You started in cash and moved into the market after a year that returned about {entry} or better, then stayed. You never moved your money once, which means there is no timing rule to test. That is not a failure. It is the robot's strategy, and you just played it by hand. {count} of {sims} {count} of {total} Your rule beat staying invested in {count} of {sims} markets, or {pct} of the time. Across those runs the rule sat out {avg} of the market's best years, and being out for those alone accounts for {missed} of the difference. The rule is not stupid. It is just right less often than doing nothing, and it has to be right twice each time. Your rule beat staying invested in {count} of {sims} markets, or {pct} of the time, which is more often than not. Worth knowing what it costs when it is wrong: in the worst tenth of those markets it finished {worst} behind. A rule that wins often and loses badly is a different thing from a rule that wins. Running 500 markets… 500 markets tested Test that rule on 500 more markets

Worst year in a decade. Everyone you know is talking about it. The market falls off a cliff and nobody can say why. Front pages are using the word crash without any hedging. A grinding, miserable year. Nothing dramatic, nothing good. Down again. The commentary says this is the new normal. A losing year, and the loud voices are saying it gets worse. A year of nothing much at all. Sideways. Twelve months of headlines about uncertainty. The market ends roughly where it started. A solid year. The mood has turned. Up nicely, and people are starting to feel clever. A good twelve months, quietly. A huge year. Everyone suddenly has a stock tip. The market runs away upward and nobody wants to miss it. A spectacular year, and the word bubble is going around.

Quiz: What Kind of Investor Are You?

Do you chase the newest trend, or play it slow and steady? Take this short, 5-question quiz to discover your investor personality and risk profile.

Take the Quiz

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Infographic: The 3-Step “Lazy” Plan to $1 Million

The 3-Step Lazy Plan to a Million Dollars

The Laziest Way to Make $1,000,000 (10 Minutes a Year)

I’ve been investing since I was seven years old. Here’s what I learned: you don’t need to pick individual stocks, you don’t need to watch the market every day, and you definitely don’t need to be a genius.

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I passed the CFP® exam at 16 and helped millions improve their finances, and I’ll share the lazy investor’s dream: three dead-simple steps to hit a million dollars.

Step 1: Open an Investment Account and Pick Your Investments

Open a Roth IRA

First, open a Roth IRA. Here’s why this matters.

Every dollar you put in grows tax-free forever. When you retire and pull that money out, you don’t owe the IRS a single penny on your gains.

Plus, if you’re in a dire emergency, you can withdraw your contributions without penalties. That flexibility can be clutch when you’re young.

Pick Your Two Funds

Now, here’s where most people overcomplicate things. They think they need to pick the best stocks, or ten different funds covering all the hot sectors.

You don’t. Young investors with decades to benefit from compounding need exactly two index funds: VOO and VEU.

That’s it.

VOO tracks the S&P 500 – the 500 largest US companies, like Apple, Walmart, Microsoft, and Coca-Cola. You own a slice of them all, so when the US economy grows, you grow with it.

VEU covers international stocks outside the United States, including emerging markets. It captures global growth and makes sure you’re not betting everything on just one country.

Fund Allocation

Here’s your allocation: invest 80% in VOO, and 20% in VEU.

You’re heavy on US stocks because historically they’ve delivered strong returns, but you’ve still got that 20% international exposure to spread risk across the entire global economy.

Here’s the beauty of this setup: there’s no need for endless research on individual companies. 2 ETFs are your whole portfolio.

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Setting up a Roth IRA online takes about 10 minutes. So go to any of the popular brokerages – Fidelity, Vanguard, or Schwab – and open a Roth IRA.

You’ve just started your millionaire journey!

Retirement Investment - Benefit of Starting Early

Step 2: Automate Your Monthly Contributions

Now that you’ve got the right account and funds, here’s the math that makes this work.

Let’s say you’re 25 years old and you want to retire at 65. Using a 9% annual return, which is conservative based on historical market performance, you need to invest about $250 per month to hit $1 million by retirement.

You’re putting in just $120,000 over these 40 years. The other $880,000 is compounding doing the heavy lifting for you!

Retirement money breakup

The market grows, and time turns your contributions into serious wealth. This is why starting early is so powerful.

But here’s where most people fail. They rely on their willpower.

Be smart, and automate. Just log into your brokerage account and set up automatic transfers and investments.

First, schedule $250 to transfer from your checking account to your brokerage account every month. If your employer allows it, you can split your direct deposit so $250 goes straight to your Roth IRA before you ever see it.

And then, set up automatic investment in VOO and VEU.

If $250 feels like a lot right now, start with what you can afford – even if it’s $50 or $100. And as you get raises over the years, increase your contribution.

The key is to start today and let compounding do the hard work.

Monthly Investment Process

Step 3: Check Once Per Year and Do Nothing Else

You’ve automated the contributions and investment. Now here’s how you stay on track without obsessing.

Once a year, log into your account. Verify that your contributions and investments are happening as scheduled.

And check that your allocation has stayed roughly 80/20 between VOO and VEU. If it has drifted a bit, you can rebalance. That’s it. Then log out.

Here’s the boring truth: doing nothing is the winning strategy for long-term wealth. Time does most of the work, because compounding and market growth happen whether you’re watching or not.

But there are 4 common mistakes that could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars. Check this out before you invest another dollar to avoid them: 4 Beginner Investing Mistakes That Are Quietly Costing You Thousands

Rishi Vamdatt

Passed the CFP® Exam at Age 16 (Youngest Ever) | NYU Certificate in Financial Planning | NJ Joint Legislative Resolution | 3× Plutus Award Winner | Published Author of 5 Books

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