There’s simply so much wealth-building advice out there that it’s easy to feel a little overwhelmed. If you ask ChatGPT “how to become a millionaire,” you’re likely to get a flood of endless money hacks, conflicting advice and complex economic theory.
But you don’t need any of that to get into the seven-figure club. In fact, you can chart a course to the $1 million milestone by simply focusing on three essential numbers.
Here’s a closer look.
Calculate your net worth
You can’t make intentional progress if you don’t know your own value. That’s why the most basic number you should be tracking consistently is your net worth.
Although calculating your net worth should be relatively easy, many Canadians don’t know where to start.
In a 2022 survey from Maru Public Opinion, about 70% of Canadians considered themselves to be financially literate, which means nearly one-third of all adults don’t feel financially well-versed and could be struggling to accurately measure and understand their wealth.
Fortunately, numerous tools are available to help you track your net worth seamlessly.
With Monarch Money, you can get a clear picture of where your money is coming from and where it’s going — all in one place. Their powerful net worth tracker lets you monitor your investments across every platform through a single, easy-to-use dashboard.
All you have to do is link your bank and investment accounts with Monarch, and you can see how your portfolio of investments — including stocks, 401(k)s, ETFs and crypto — is doing. This way, you can see which assets have been performing well, which can help you determine where to invest next.
Monarch Money also helps you see how your real estate portfolio is performing by syncing properties with Zillow Zestimates — helping you track how your real estate property values have grown over time.
Sign up now and get a seven-day free trial and 50% off your subscription for the first year.
Optimize your savings rate
If you’re trying to build wealth, it’s essential to track the amount of money you or your family save in any given year. In fact, when you monitor and raise your savings rate high enough to meet your savings goal, you can make your journey to millionaire status a lot shorter.
Unfortunately, most Canadian families struggle to save. In the first quarter of 2025, the Household Savings Rate in Canada dipped to 5.7% from 6% at the end of 2024, according to Statistics Canada.
A family earning $100,000 a year would save just $5,700 per year at this pace and would take 175 years to reach $1 million in savings. But if that same family could raise their annual savings rate to 20%, it would take just 50 years to get to that target.
These numbers show why tracking and boosting your savings rate is so crucial to building wealth and why so many millionaires and billionaires are notoriously frugal.
But here’s the good news: You don’t need to be a billionaire to make your money work harder. Small changes in where you keep your savings can have a big impact over time, especially when you consider that Canadians paid more than $7.7 billion a year in extra banking fees when using the big five banks, according to a 2022 report by North Economics.
You can cut down on unnecessary fees while earning more on every dollar you save with EQ Bank’s Personal Account.
If you set up a monthly recurring deposit of $2,000, you can earn up to 3% APY — roughly six times the average interest rate offered by big-name banks.
But you can still enjoy the benefits of a chequing account, as EQ Bank charges no account fees or minimum balance requirement, free ATM withdrawals and no foreign exchange fees on overseas transactions.
Plus, your deposits of up to $100,000 are insured by the CDIC, ensuring your money stays safe while it grows.
Maximize the rate of return on your savings and investments
The final ingredient in the wealth creation recipe is the rate of return on your savings.
Where you place your savings is just as important as how much you save. If you’re stacking $20,000 a year under a mattress, you will take several decades to get to millionaire status. Plus, by the time you get there, inflation would have drastically reduced the value of a million dollars. Instead, if you invest in robust growth stocks, real estate or fixed income opportunities, you could get to the seven-figure club a lot faster.
The Vanguard S&P 500 Index ETF (VFV), for example, delivered a net asset value return of approximately 17.16% since its inception. If a Canadian investor assumes a similar return going forward and invests $1,000 per month into VFV, they could reach the $1 million target in less than 20 years.
For someone with a diversified portfolio spread across bonds, real estate, stocks and cryptocurrency, it’s essential to measure the total combined return on all your assets every year to see if you’re making good progress towards your goal.
Building a diversified portfolio doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Opening a discount brokerage account with CIBC Investor’s Edge can help you diversify your portfolio without paying hefty commissions on trades.
CIBC waives any account or maintenance fees if the combined market balance of all registered and non-registered accounts is greater than $10,000. Plus, you can get access to real-time news and stock alerts, so you can stay on top of market shifts as they happen.
Article sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
[1]. Maru Public Opinion. "Canadians halfheartedly ring in 2022"
[2]. Statistics Canada. "Gross domestic product, income and expenditure, first quarter 2025"
[3]. Vanguard. "Vanguard S&P 500 Index ETF Factsheet"
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.