So I was looking into how realistic it actually is to become a millionaire through consistent investing, and the math is kind of interesting. Turns out if you're dumping $1,000 annually into an S&P 500 ETF or SP ETF fund, you're looking at roughly 57-58 years to hit that million-dollar mark, assuming you get around an 8% average annual return. That's basically assuming the market performs like it historically has.

The thing that caught my attention though is how much the timeframe shifts if you can invest more. Like, if you bump it up to $5,000 a year instead, you're cutting that down to around 37 years. Double it to $10,000 annually and you're looking at maybe 29 years. So the math really rewards people who can consistently contribute more to their SP ETF positions.

There's also this variable of whether markets will keep returning what they historically have. The past decade has been unusually strong at over 11% annual returns, which is way above the long-term average. So it's worth being realistic that future S&P 500 ETF returns might normalize lower. Either way, the core lesson seems to be that consistent, boring index investing through an S&P 500 ETF actually works if you give it enough time and can stick with it.