How To Make Money With Compound Interest

Accounts That Earn Compounding Interest

Compound interest is what can turn your savings into wealth over time -- even if you don't earn a great rate of return.

Updated: Jul 5, 2021 at 3:48PM

If your investment account earns compound interest, then you are earning interest on interest, in addition to interest on your investments. Compound interest is undoubtedly the most important concept to understand when building wealth for the long term. Noted genius Albert Einstein called compound interest the "eighth wonder of the world."

Here's a closer look at compound interest.

Piles of change growing over time through compound interest.

Image source: Getty Images.

How compound interest works

Compounding is happening when your investment grows each year -- and when the amount that your investment grows by also grows. The value of an investment that generates earnings is compounded by those earnings generating earnings of their own. It's a relatively simple concept but with mind-blowing possibilities since the longer you let your investments grow, the more rapidly they do grow.

Consider a single $1,000 investment growing at 10% annually:

Elapsed Time	Portfolio Value	Gain in Previous Five Years
0 years	$1,000	n/a
5 years	$1,611	$611
10 years	$2,594	$983
15 years	$4,177	$1,583
20 years	$6,728	$2,551
25 years	$10,385	$3,657
30 years	$17,449	$7,064
40 years	$45,259	$27,810
50 years	$117,391	$72,132

Chart by author.

Notice that, over the first five years, the modest $1,000 investment grows by $611. But decades later, without investing any additional money, that investment is growing by tens of thousands of dollars in the same number of years. Now imagine what happens if you start with $5,000 or $10,000 and keep contributing more money to your account regularly.

Which types of accounts offer compound interest?

You have several options to take advantage of compounding interest to build wealth. All of these investing strategies generate compound interest:

Savings accounts: Banks lend out the cash that you put into savings accounts and pay you interest in exchange for not withdrawing the funds. Savings accounts that compound daily, as opposed to weekly or monthly, are the best because frequently compounding interest increases your account balance the fastest. You can open a savings account with any local or online bank.
Money market accounts: These are mostly the same as savings accounts except that money market accounts enable you to write checks and make ATM withdrawals. Money market accounts often pay slightly higher interest rates than savings accounts. The downsides of money market accounts are that most have limits on the number of transactions you can complete each month and sometimes charge a fee if your balance falls below a certain amount.
Zero-coupon bonds: These bonds generate the equivalent of compound interest to compensate for the risk associated with holding zero-coupon bonds. A zero-coupon bond holder purchases a bond at a steep discount, receives no interest payments (coupons) in exchange for holding the bond, and is paid the bond's face value when the bond is due. The risk is that the company may not be financially able to repay the bond's full face value at the end of the term.
Dividend stocks: Stocks that pay dividends generate compound interest if you reinvest the dividends. You can instruct your brokerage to automatically reinvest all dividend payments you receive by buying more shares.

While savings accounts and money market accounts are both extremely safe options, you are unlikely to find an account that pays even 1% interest. To significantly profit from compounding interest, it's important to diversify your money into different types of accounts and investments.

The power of compounding interest

Compounding interest can turn meager investments into wealth over time, but only if you start investing as soon as possible and then stay invested.

The sooner you start investing, the more time you have for interest to compound on interest. The $1,000 investment in the example increased by $983 from year 5 to year 10 and by $7,064 from year 25 to year 30. The longer you wait to start investing, the older you are before you reach year 30.

Staying invested is key to maximizing the effects of compound interest. If you're constantly moving or withdrawing your money whenever the market declines, you lose out on a lot of potential compounded interest.

Who benefits from compound interest?

Both financial institutions and consumers benefit from compound interest. Banks pay compounding interest to consumers at low interest rates in exchange for not withdrawing funds and simultaneously lend that deposited money to earn attractive streams of interest income.

Can compound interest make you rich?

Compound interest can turn you into a wealthy person but not quickly. The effects of compounding interest occur over the long term and only if you prioritize buying and holding as an investor.

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