---
title: "How to Double Your Money"
description: "How to double your money; investing in stocks can build you wealth, if you find a good rate of return. The math is simple."
canonical_url: https://trendshare.org/how-to-invest/how-to-double-your-money
markdown_url: https://trendshare.org/ai/how-to-double-your-money.md
published: 2014-07-13
last_updated: 2017-06-14
content_license: https://trendshare.org/about/disclaimer
---
# How to Double Your Money

Source: https://trendshare.org/how-to-invest/how-to-double-your-money
Updated: 2017-06-14
You work hard for your money. You're exercising the self discipline to
invest some of your money to make more money. Whether you're sending a child to
school, buying a house, preparing for retirement, or building wealth, you'd
rather double your money than lose it. What you invest in is important. So is
how you invest.

One of the best reasons to invest in the stock of a good company (rather
than [investing in precious metals such as gold or silver](https://trendshare.org/how-to-invest/should-you-invest-in-gold-or-silver) or some opaque [ETF](https://trendshare.org/how-to-invest/should-you-invest-in-etfs)) is that good businesses grow. That
little coffee and pastry shop in Canada that went public and is now spreading
throughout the northeast United States has the potential to grow all across
North America. That semiconductor company which has just shipped its billionth
chip has the potential to sell ten billion every year for the next decade.

Good businesses grow. That growth, if properly applied, can accelerate
future growth. This is the secret magic of investing well.

## Calculate Compound Interest with the Rule of 72

As you remember, *compound interest* is interest that generates more
interest. *Simple interest* is interest that doesn't get reinvested. If
you loan your brother in law $500 and he pays you 3% simple interest in a year,
you'll get $500 plus $15. That's simple and easy. If you loan him that $515 for
another year at 3% interest, you'll get $515 back plus $15.45. If you loan him
that $530.45, and so on and so on.

Compound interest earns money not only on the principal but on the interest
you've already accumulated. Sure, you know that. Here's the interesting part;
you can use that to predict things.

If you keep loaning your brother in law that money plus interest again and
again, how long before you've turned that $500 into $1000? There's a simple
rule of thumb to figure it out. Take the compounding interest rate—3%,
here—and divide 72 by that number. 72 divided by 3 is 24, so it'll take
24 interest periods—years, here—to double your money. If you charge
him 6% per year, it'll take 12 years to double your money. If you charge him 3%
every *month*, you will double your money in 24 *months*.

Remember, you have to keep every penny of interest you earn in the
investment to compound at the rate you earn.

## Stocks and Your Effective Rate of Return

You can also use the rule of 72 to figure out how well your investments are
doing across your entire portfolio (stocks, bonds, precious metals, cash and
cash equivalents). Calculating your [effective annual return](https://trendshare.org/how-to-invest/what-is-a-good-annual-rate-of-return) gives
you a rough idea of how often you can double your investment. For example,
Trendshare's [discounted cash flow projections](https://trendshare.org/how-to-invest/what-is-discounted-cash-flow) use 15% as a baseline. This gives a 12% annual return after
inflation and (long-term capital gains) taxes. At 12% a year, it takes six
years to double an investment. If you start investing now with the intent to
retire in 30 years, every dollar you invest now will turn in to $32.

There's more fun in these numbers if you bring in some middle-school
algebra. If you intend to retire in 30 years with a million dollars and aim
for a 12% annual return, your multiplier is 32. Divide the end result of
$1,000,000 by 32. You need to invest $31,250 right now, earn 12% annually on
average, and *never invest another penny* to get a million dollars.

You may not have $30k lying around right now and you may be older or younger
than our hypothetical 35 year old person. You might want more than a million
dollars. The [Investor.gov compound interest calculator](https://www.investor.gov/additional-resources/free-financial-planning-tools/compound-interest-calculator) lets you play with the numbers. You can choose
your starting principal, how much you invest monthly, and the interest rate you
earn annually. It's good for getting into specific details, but the rule of 72
is easy to remember and a great place to start.

## How to Compound Stock Returns

All of this explanation is well and good, but it rests on the idea that you
can reinvest your interest to roll it up into the principal. That's easy to do
with a bank account or a CD. How do you do that with a stock? Compound interest
in the stock market works the same way.

A business has several options to make itself more valuable. It can reinvest
its profits into growth (inventing new products, opening new stores or
factories, reducing expenses, or buying other companies). It can [buy back shares of the stock](https://trendshare.org/how-to-invest/why-do-companies-perform-stock-buybacks)
(increasing the earnings per share by reducing the number of shares
outstanding). It can pay off debt ([reducing liabilities and improving the balance sheet](https://trendshare.org/how-to-invest/debt-and-assets)).

Good businesses—[businesses you want to invest in](https://trendshare.org/how-to-invest/what-makes-good-stocks-good)—do this. Warren Buffett's [Berkshire-Hathaway](/stocks/BRKA/view) is famous for reinvesting
profits into the business. Buffett's theory is this: that if he and Charlie
Munger can provide a better return on that money by finding good investments
for it, shareholders are better off than if they tried to invest that money
themselves.

Not all companies share this philosophy. [Some companies pay dividends](https://trendshare.org/how-to-invest/why-do-companies-pay-dividends). (Many
of these dividend stocks belong to companies which reinvest *some* of
their profits.)

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with paying dividends (in certain
circumstances, [buying dividend stocks is the right choice](https://trendshare.org/how-to-invest/how-to-buy-dividend-paying-stocks)), but there are two subtle implications of
receiving a dividend. First, *you* have to pay taxes on the money.
Unless you have a fantastic strategy for delaying capital gains taxes on
interest income, you'll pay taxes for every dollar of dividend income you get
in that year. Second, that money is not necessarily compounding for you
*unless you reinvest it*. The important question is how to invest your
money to make money; same question for businesses as for individuals.

Again, the only money that compounds for you is the money you've rolled into
the principal. If you get 12% returns from the stock itself and 3% in
dividends, you'll only compound your 15% return if you reinvest your dividends.
You're probably paying taxes on that 3%, so it's very likely *less* than
15% when all is said and done.

## Dividend Reinvesting versus Buying Other Stocks

There's nothing wrong with a stock that pays dividends. It's a useful and
valuable thing, and it can attract [buy and hold](https://trendshare.org/how-to-invest/buy-and-hold)
investors who treat the business like a business. Yet if you've found a great
company and you want to hold it for 30 years, you might want to sign up for a
[dividend reinvesting program](https://trendshare.org/how-to-invest/what-is-dividend-reinvesting) to buy
more shares of that stock with the money you've received from dividends.
That'll help you take advantage of compounding interest.

An alternate approach is to use your quarterly checks to invest in
*other* companies. In this sense, you'll compound your investment by
putting your dividends into your total portfolio principal, not just [Coca-Cola](/stocks/KO/view) or [McDonald's](/stocks/MCD/view). This is a great approach if you have a
stable of good opportunities.

## Doubling Your Money in the Stock Market Takes Time

The rule of 72 can help you find good investments and analyze your rate of
return. It's not the secret of how to double your money in a year (there's no
iron-clad secret for that, not even [penny stock trading](https://trendshare.org/how-to-invest/how-do-you-make-money-with-penny-stocks); you
have to get 6% returns every month to double your money every year). Instead,
it's a sober reminder that building true wealth through investing takes
time.

Set your expectations appropriately. Turning $31,250 into a million dollars
in 30 years *is* impressive. You need the discipline to find good
investments and the patience to watch them grow, but if you have the ability to
reinvest your profits back into your investments, compounding interest will
produce for you great returns over time.