Want $1 Million in Retirement? Start With This Index Fund.

Amassing a $1 million retirement fund can sound like a daunting task. In reality, it's very achievable. It just takes some proper planning and the time and patience to let your investment nest egg grow for years.

Having the right investment helps, too.

This is where some people can go wrong. They think that in order to get to $1 million, they need to take home run swings and get a few of them right. When it comes to investing, though, singles and doubles can also produce a lot of runs.

Just owning the entire U.S. stock market isn't as exciting as trying to find the next big artificial intelligence (AI) stock. But it's ultimately the best path to long-term wealth creation.

If you want to start down or continue the path toward a $1 million retirement account, the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (NYSEMKT: VTI) is the fund to own.

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Why VTI works for retirement savers

The Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF has two things in particular going for it.

First, it doesn't try to beat the market. That sounds a little weird, since it seems like something everyone should try. But even the professional money managers have trouble doing it consistently, and they often charge investors high fees to try. In the end, it's better to choose an ultra-cheap exchange-traded fund that simply tracks the index's performance.

Second, most Vanguard ETFs are about as ultra-cheap as you can get within their categories. This ETF has an annual expense ratio of just 0.03%, which means it costs $3 per year for every $10,000 invested. Few deals in the financial markets are better.

That means anyone can buy the entire investable U.S. equity market, more than 3,500 stocks in total, for next to nothing. You get broad diversification across every corner of the market, exposure to the full U.S. economic growth engine, and a portfolio designed for long-term growth.

Those are the three things that every retirement investor needs at the core of their portfolio.

VTI works at any stage of your life

The Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF is one of the best retirement savings vehicles. But it needs to be sized properly in your portfolio depending on your age, risk tolerance, and investment objectives.

An investor starting out in their 20s may choose to allocate everything to this fund. After all, they have decades to invest and have plenty of time to ride out short-term volatility. Someone who's in their 50s, however, might find a stock/bond mix more appropriate for where they are in the life cycle. In that case, maybe only 60% of their portfolio would be in this ETF.

The overall point is that VTI makes for ideal core equity exposure for your portfolio, regardless of how much of your portfolio it accounts for.

It's also important to understand that the path to $1 million won't be a straight line. There will be market declines from time to time. That's simply the price of admission when investing in stocks. Some of the biggest damage investors can do to their portfolios comes from trying to time the market. Stay invested, ride out the volatility, keep contributing.

If you can manage to do that consistently, a $1 million portfolio is within your reach.

David Dierking has positions in Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.