Maybe that's the easiest, but not the most common. According to Millionaire Next Door, there are kids, sometimes only one income, savings of 15%+, and late 50s.
Right. Kids do tend to be a quadruple whammy though:
* Basic living costs (food and clothing and fun).
* Childcare requires either expensive daycare or a parent not working / limited working.
* Money needs to be saved for college.
* Require more bedrooms, which drives up housing costs although it's arguable whether this has an impact on net worth. (This may be double-counting the first point, but going from a $100k condo to a $400k house because of a child is more than just living costs.)
Add those up and yes it probably takes another 10-20 years to meet your net worth goals. OTOH, you have a safety net when you get older. And, you know, a kid.
Yes, the single biggest factor is age. You want a net-worth distribution where the wealthiest people are at retirement age because they're going to quit working and then that wealth will be spent in their retirement. It's like a roller coaster, you want to be moving the fastest right before you enter the loop so that you can be sure not to stall right when you're upside down (or embarrassingly fail to make it even that far and end up rolling backwards.) If everyone was going the same speed all the time, we'd just have boring flat tracks and there would be no point in going on the ride.
* Basic living costs (food and clothing and fun).
* Childcare requires either expensive daycare or a parent not working / limited working.
* Money needs to be saved for college.
* Require more bedrooms, which drives up housing costs although it's arguable whether this has an impact on net worth. (This may be double-counting the first point, but going from a $100k condo to a $400k house because of a child is more than just living costs.)
Add those up and yes it probably takes another 10-20 years to meet your net worth goals. OTOH, you have a safety net when you get older. And, you know, a kid.