What is 100M65?

Invest Naija exists to help Nigerians with their financial confidence.  And that’s why Invest Naija began the 100M65 challenge, a campaign to help Nigerians save N100 million by the age of 65.  Educating Nigerians to set the investment strategy early to reach the goal is central to the 100M65 challenge. 

One hundred million Naira! 

N100 million sounds like a lot of money.  So how realistic is it to aim for 100M65?  Is this simply a good but unobtainable idea?  Or can Nigerians achieve 100M65 with Invest Naija? 

To answer that question you need to understand the maths to get you to 100M65 and you need to understand the benefits of starting early.  Here are 2 examples: 

1. In the first example we show what happens if you receive a bequest or a gift of N2,800,000 (two million eight hundred thousand) at the age of 35.  Because if that happened and that N2.8m was invested with InvestNaija at an average 12% annual return for 360 months (30 years) it would return you 100M65.  That N2.8m would have grown more than 30 times.
2. If you decide at the age of 35 to invest N29,000 (twenty-nine thousand) a month into an InvestNaija's 100M65 plan and maintain those payments for 360 months (30 years) you would make total investments of N10,440,000 (ten million, four hundred and forty thousand).  At an average 12% annual return that N10.44m would grow 10 times to 100M65 

The power of compounding 

These extraordinary levels of growth that occur with long-term investments happen because of the power of compounding.   Compounding is the process in which an investment’s earnings (either from interest or dividends, or from capital gains) are reinvested to generate additional earnings over time. 

Here’s an example of compounding, below, showing that the returns from reinvesting returns starts to dwarf the original investment and the interest that you would earn without reinvestment. 

But just because the examples we’ve shown start at the age the age of 35 don’t wait and start 100M65 then.  The smart investor will break down the 100M65 challenge and set shorter term goals.  

It’s never too early to start 100M65 

For example, how do you save and invest to be able to put aside N2.8m at the age of 35 in order to meet the 100M65 challenge?  Here’s one way.  What if you save N9,000 a month for 10-years from the age of 25 to the age of 35?  Because if you did using a 12% annual return you would have saved N2.8m in that time period from your N1m in monthly investments. 

So the message is this:  Failure or success does not happen by accident.  They are the COMPOUND INTEREST of action or inaction. 

e.g. Investment result – as a multiple of the original investment 

Years	9%	12%	15%
10	X 2	X 3	X 4
20	X 6	X 10	X 16
30	X 13	X 30	X 66
40	X 31	X 93	X 268
50	X 74	X 289	X 1,084

Just look at what an additional 10 years of compounding can do for your wealth! 

It’s never too late to start 100M65 

Millions of us have started building our wealth with a pension fund account (RSA – Retirement Savings Account).  The question we need to ask ourselves is whether we start earlier on maximising our pension savings. If you started late, you may not reach 100M65, but you can still reach a higher number at the age of 65. Also, don’t be fixated on the age 65. Our Presidents are elected at an older age, people are working and living healthily at a later age. We can grow our pension pots more if we choose to work later and keep ourselves active.  Remember that Warren Buffett amassed 90% of his wealth after the age of 60.