<prompt> Human: So I just started my first career and once I set up my emergency fun and pay off my debt I plan on investing heavily. Reading through the wikis and talking with some colleagues, the idea seems to be a 3 fund portfolio and a Roth IRA until I exceed the income bracket and am forced to switch to a traditionap IRA. My company offers a 401k but only after 2 years of employment and apparently the fees are high so it may not be worth it, thats why I am looking into IRAs. My main question is how much does this actually make? The internet seems to tell me historically i can expect about 7 growth each year, but over the course of 40 years if I eventually put in 500000 as an example, Id only gain around 35000 from interest. But then I read online about how people see massive returns I dont remember the name of the book but someone showed a growth of 10000 over 30 years returning something like 300000, 30 times more than what they initially started with. I must be missing something or just completely not understanding this so i was hoping someone could ELI5. Thanks!Edit: Im a big dummy. How do I close this post?  <response>: 1. If your company matches your 401k its worth it 99.9 of the time.2. Look up compound interest. Your just doing 500000 x .07. Thats the interest for 1 year. The next year it would be 535000 x .07 and so on. The amount of interest each year keeps increasing as the interest gains interest 