The First €100,000: Why They Change Everything

The first €100,000 are the hardest part of building wealth. Statistically, the typical household in Germany only gets there in net wealth in its early to mid-40s – and in pure financial assets, i.e. without real estate, at no age at all. At the same time: once you've cleared that first hurdle, the next €100,000 come almost twice as fast. It took me more than 7 years to reach my first €100,000. After that it went much faster, because the money works along with you.

In this article we look at why €100,000 in particular is such a magic threshold, what's actually "normal" in Germany, how long the road there takes with different savings rates and why it gets so much easier afterwards.

As always, the most important thing first: this is not investment advice and not a buy recommendation, just my personal opinion. All calculations in this article are model calculations – monthly savings plan, 7% return per year, no costs and no taxes. Reality fluctuates, and stocks can stay in the red for years. Links marked with * are partner links: if you use them, I get a small commission, at no extra cost to you.

Why €100,000 of all numbers?

This number wasn't made up by some finance influencer. At the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting on 3 May 1999, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger were asked how to build a large fortune. Munger answered (transcript in the CNBC Warren Buffett Archive):

“The hard part of the process for most people is the first $100,000. If you have a standing start at zero, getting together $100,000 is a long struggle for most people. And I would argue that the people who get there relatively quickly are helped if they're passionate about being rational, very eager and opportunistic, and steadily underspend their income grossly. I think those three factors are very helpful.”

Charlie Munger, Berkshire annual meeting 1999

In the same answer, Buffett had just delivered the image that later gave his biography The Snowball its title: compound interest behaves like a snowball of sticky snow, and the trick is to have a very long hill – which means either starting very young or living to be very old.

One point matters here: in 1999 money was worth a lot more. Adjusted for US inflation, Munger's $100,000 back then correspond to around $200,000 today. So the hurdle hasn't got any smaller – rather the opposite.

What's actually normal in Germany?

The best source for this is the Deutsche Bundesbank's wealth survey (PHF, 2023 wave, published in the Monthly Report of April 2025, in German). All figures refer to households, not individuals. Net wealth includes real estate, business assets, vehicles and financial assets minus debt – pension entitlements are not included.

Figure (households, 2023)	Value
Net wealth, median	€103,200
Gross financial assets, median	€27,400
Net wealth, median of renter households	€18,300
Net wealth, median of owners without a mortgage	€450,200
Threshold for the richest 10% (net wealth)	€779,500

So with €100,000 in net wealth you're roughly in the middle – mainly because of real estate. Financial assets are a completely different story: only about one in four households has €100,000 in accounts, securities and insurance (by my approximation from the published percentiles, around the 76th percentile).

The breakdown by age is interesting (it refers to the age of the person with the highest income in the household):

Age	Net wealth (median)	Gross financial assets (median)
25–34	€19,100	€9,300
35–44	€75,100	€23,800
45–54	€156,200	€35,700
55–64	€255,900	€46,300
65–74	€211,900	€32,200

Between 35–44 and 45–54 the median jumps past €100,000 – so the typical household reaches it in its early to mid-40s. In financial assets, on the other hand, the median household reaches €100,000 in no age group: the peak is €46,300 at 55–64. For context: this is a snapshot from 2023, not a life course, and because of the strong stock market years since then the figures are probably somewhat higher in nominal terms today.

The road to your first €100,000

How long it takes depends on two things: how much you save and what return you get. My model calculation – monthly contribution, annual return, no costs, no taxes:

Savings rate	0%	4%	7%	9%
€100/month	83.3 yrs	37.1 yrs	28.1 yrs	24.5 yrs
€250/month	33.3 yrs	21.4 yrs	17.5 yrs	15.8 yrs
€500/month	16.7 yrs	12.9 yrs	11.2 yrs	10.4 yrs
€1,000/month	8.3 yrs	7.2 yrs	6.7 yrs	6.3 yrs

Years to €100,000. Model calculation, no costs or taxes, not a forecast.

What this shows: at the start, your savings rate matters more than your return. Going from €500 to €1,000 a month gets you there four and a half years earlier at 7%. Staying at €500 and getting 9% instead of 7% doesn't even save you a year.

And where does the 7% come from? According to the MSCI factsheet, the MSCI World has returned around 9% a year since the end of 1987 – in US dollars and with dividends. Calculated in euros, it was around 6.7% a year from the end of 2000 to September 2026 (net return) – a rather unfavourable starting point, because the dotcom bubble burst shortly afterwards. So 7% sits somewhere in between – as an assumption, not a promise.

How much do Germans actually save? According to Destatis, the savings ratio in 2025 was 10.1% of disposable income. In the first half of 2025 that came to just under €270 per person per month on average – children included. With €270 a month and 7%, it takes just under 17 years to reach €100,000 in my calculation, and almost 31 years with no return at all.

The right account: Smartbroker+ with a €20 McDonald's share

If you want to start your own savings plan now, you need a brokerage account. I use Smartbroker+, among others, and currently have my own partner promotion there: if you open a free account as a new customer through my link*, you get a McDonald's share worth €20 (WKN 856958) for free.

According to the promotion page (as of 26 October 2026), Smartbroker+ lets you trade stocks, ETFs and funds from €0 (from €500 order volume via gettex, plus usual market spreads, inducements and product costs), offers more than 4,600 savings plans with €0 order fees, and order processing runs through German institutions. How the promotion works and what to watch out for so the share actually reaches you is explained in my article on the Smartbroker+ promotion. You'll find the full terms of participation on the promotion page – best read them right before you sign up.

Why it gets easier after the first €100,000

Now comes the really exciting part. At the start you do almost everything yourself: with €500 a month and 7%, you reach €100,000 after 11.2 years – of which you paid in €67,500, and around €32,500 came from returns.

At some point the ratio tips. In my calculation, at around €86,500 the portfolio for the first time earns more per year (7% on the balance) than the €6,000 a year you pay in yourself. That's the tipping point – at €500 a month it's almost exactly at the first €100,000. From then on, the money works harder than you do.

For context: 7% on €100,000 is €7,000 a year, or around €580 a month on average. That's almost as much as the German mini-job limit of €603 in 2026 – except you don't have to go to work for it. In any single year, of course, it can be much less or even negative.

Here are the milestones with €500 a month and 7%:

Milestone	reached after	time for these €100,000	paid in (total)
€100,000	11.2 yrs	11.2 yrs	€67,500
€200,000	17.5 yrs	6.2 yrs	€105,000
€300,000	21.9 yrs	4.4 yrs	€131,500
€400,000	25.3 yrs	3.4 yrs	€152,000
€500,000	28.1 yrs	2.8 yrs	€168,500
€1,000,000	37.2 yrs	1.4 yrs	€223,000

Model calculation: €500 at the end of each month, 7% a year, no costs or taxes.

So the second €100,000 come almost twice as fast as the first, and the last €100,000 on the way to a million in less than a year and a half. And at one million you've only paid in €223,000 yourself – the rest is returns.

The best real-world example is Warren Buffett. In The Psychology of Money (2020), Morgan Housel points out that of Buffett's then $84.5 billion fortune, $81.5 billion came after he was in his mid-60s. That's a snapshot from 2020 – but it shows what a very long hill can do.

The catch: you have to stick with it, even when it hurts. The MSCI World fell by around 57% from the end of October 2007 to March 2009. Anyone who sold back then broke their own snowball.

What changes from €100,000 onwards

With six figures in your portfolio, it's not just the number that changes, but also what you should pay attention to:

• You have a buffer. A broken washing machine or a month without saving no longer sets you back. That gives you peace of mind – and peace of mind helps you not to act wrongly in a crisis.
• Costs suddenly become visible. 0.5% in ongoing costs sounds like little, but on €100,000 it's €500 a year. Every tenth of a percent now counts in euros.
• Taxes become a topic. In Germany, the saver's allowance (Sparerpauschbetrag) is €1,000 per person (€2,000 for jointly assessed couples). Purely mathematically, €1,000 is already reached at just over €14,000 in the portfolio and a 7% return. For ETFs, though, only distributions, the advance lump sum (Vorabpauschale) and realised gains count for tax purposes – so this figure is only a rough illustration.
• Lifestyle inflation becomes a danger. If you start "treating yourself" at €100,000 and cut back your savings rate, you give away exactly the phase in which things would get easier from now on. Munger already said it in 1999: steadily underspend your income grossly.

Vanguard founder John Bogle summed it up in one of his rules: "Time is your friend; impulse is your enemy." (The Clash of the Cultures, 2012)

My experience: more than 7 years to my first €100,000

For me it was exactly as the calculation shows. It took me more than 7 years to reach my first €100,000. After that it went much faster – because the money works along with you. By the way, I show how I invest today and how my wealth develops month by month completely transparently in my monthly net worth update.

The four levers that really matter

If you want to reach your first €100,000 faster, there are four things you can adjust:

1. Income and savings rate. The most important lever at the start – see the table above. Morgan Housel puts it in a nutshell: building wealth, he writes, has little to do with your income or your returns and a lot to do with your savings rate. Earning more helps, but only if the difference actually ends up in your portfolio.

2. Start early. Every year earlier lengthens the hill for your snowball. The tipping point doesn't come from luck, but from time.

3. Keep costs low. Every euro that goes to fees is missing from compound interest – year after year. And at six-figure amounts, even tenths of a percent are noticeable.

4. Automate and don't interrupt. A savings plan that runs automatically at the start of the month takes the decision off your hands. And most importantly: don't stop it in a crash.

Conclusion: the first €100,000 are the hardest – and the most important

The first €100,000 are a long struggle, as Charlie Munger already knew. In Germany, only about one in four households has cleared this hurdle in financial assets. But it's also the point where everything turns: from here on, the money works roughly as much as you do, and in my calculation the next €100,000 come almost twice as fast.

Now I'm curious: where are you right now? Still at the beginning, just short of €100,000 or already past it? Feel free to write it in the comments under the video.

And if you're still looking for an account for your savings plan: at Smartbroker+ you currently get a McDonald's share worth €20 for free through my link*.

Links marked with * are partner links. If you open an account through them, you support my work – at no extra cost to you. Thank you!