This is easy payment math. Assuming you start with nothing, your goal is $1M in the bank in 8 years, and you make average stock market returns (7%), you need to invest $7,800 per month ($93k/yr). That's approximately 1/3 of your $250k total pre-tax income.

The capital is there: the question is whether you can live the lifestyle you want in Silicon Valley on $90k/yr. (Assuming Uncle Sam takes ~35% in taxes and you incur no debt otherwise.)

In Excel:

=PMT(0.07/12,L18*12,0,-1000000)

Thanks for actually doing the math! =)

There might be a mistake with the $90k/yr leftover though. If you lose 35% of $250k/yr to tax (87.5k) and need to save $93k each year, then you should only have about $70k/yr left.

This is 5.8k a month to support two people which is barely doable for me personally (according to my past spending trends on mint.com).

I'll blame rounding. :)

It's not easy, but it's doable.

There are other ways to reach a million in 8 years, but this is a pretty sure-fire one.

Care to elaborate? =P

This is going to sound obvious and/or snarky, but:

- Explore other investment types and vehicles (e.g., optimize for cash flow, real estate, increased risk) to accelerate asset growth.

- Make more money somewhere else (including taking advantage of simple stuff like 401(k) matching).

- Assume you're going to make more money later (and save more money later) / get a better job.

- Hope for a huge exit / win the lottery / rich uncle inheritance.