[hparadiz]

It literally is. People just have no discipline or skills with money. Go on the fire subreddit. 25k saved per year is a million after twenty years with a modest very conservative amount. And if you can double that with a spouse you're looking at a million in only ten years. People who stretch that to 20-25 years end up with 3-5 million.

[Nursie]

Median net wage in 2023 the US is $43,222 as per https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html

You're talking about median earners putting away more than half of their pay.

If we look at full time workers that may go up to about $1200 per week or (after federal income tax) about $57k per year - https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf

So you're still looking at 43% of every pay packet. And 50% of full-time workers will be paid less than that.

This is beyond discipline and much more than simply getting up and working hard, and more like living in self-imposed poverty, putting on hold anything resembling building a life, buying a house etc.

The fact is putting away $25k a year is the reserve of the privileged, not something achievable just by getting up and working hard for most people.

[hparadiz]

The average household income in the US is $83,730 and the median is $121,000.

It's also irrelevant. The average is weighed down by students and retirees. If you look at only people in their peak earning years (40-50) then the median jumps further.

But thank you for the comment. It perfectly exemplifies the attitude of most Americans. Born on third base and feeling entitled to blow their entire paycheck every month and then still asking for hand outs.

[Nursie]

> The average household income in the US is $83,730 and the median is $121,000.

> The average is weighed down by students and retirees.

What's your source? For a start these appear to be the wrong way round - https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2025/demo/p60-28...

And beyond that... yes? These figures are for all households, not necessarily households with people in full time work, which is a pre-requisite to looking at your claims properly. As such your household income figures don't give us a good picture to evaluate them.

The figures I quoted were for people in full time work, much more relevant to your statement, and no, they aren't weighed down by anything.

> If you look at only people in their peak earning years (40-50) then the median jumps further.

Why would I do that? Your claim was that people could become millionaires over the course of 20 years by saving $25k per annum. The median person in full time work would have a very hard time doing that as shown by the figures I gave you. And they are better off than fully half of other full time workers. Unless you have some compelling (sourced) figures about lifetime earnings that negate this, it doesn't really help us.

> It perfectly exemplifies the attitude of most Americans. Born on third base and feeling entitled to blow their entire paycheck every month and then still asking for hand outs.

Wow, OK.

Well firstly I'm not American, I'm British, soon to be Australian and might eventually become Irish (by descent) as well. No US in the picture though. Never had a state handout in my life, and my net worth is already well over your target threshold.

What I have (that you seem to be missing) is empathy for people who don't have it so good and a basic understanding of figures.

[hparadiz]

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2025/demo/p60-28...

> I'm not American

Yea I had a feeling. I'd caution you not to buy into the Internet doom and gloom. Most people retire on far less than 500k even and are doing just fine. Because the people that tend to live on less also live in the parts of the country where you can still buy a house for 100k.

[Nursie]

Yes, so that link is the same one I gave you, and confirms you have your average and your median the wrong way around.

> Most people retire on far less than 500k even and are doing just fine

Soooo .... walking back all those claims about everyday folks being able to become millionaires just by showing up to work?

[hparadiz]

Didn't know walking back on basic math was a thing but here we are.

Please stop wasting eveyones time if you're gonna ignore a primary source after you asked for it.

[bluefirebrand]

> 25k saved per year is a million after twenty years with a modest very conservative amount.

Close to 25% of people in America only make 25k a year. Forget saving that much

You are wildly out of touch with the average person and their struggles to think that 25k saved per year is even remotely achievable for most people

[hparadiz]

I dunno why people keep bringing this up as some sort of gotcha. You don't save for retirement based on your average. You do it during your peak earning years. Which are far above average. And most households have more than one earner. So even a 5% savings based on a median 84k household yields over 750k in 20 years.

Like it literally is that simple.

[bluefirebrand]

The number I am finding for the median household expenses for America is $67,000 annually. That's just essentials, housing, food, transportation, insurance, healthcare

So if your median household makes 84k, and your median household spends 67k on necessities, where is the money coming from for saving 5%? The difference is only 17k

It doesn't take much to eat up 17k. A car repair, house repair, or hospital stay (in America at least) will easily reduce that to zero or negatives

So I dunno man. It doesn't seem that simple.

Edit: and keep in mind that median does mean that a pretty large proportion of people make less than that number too. Sometimes significantly less

[hparadiz]

Presumably the 67k spend contains the car repair, house repair, hospital stay part you mentioned. Everything you're saying is accounted for. Your argument is basically anti social security. I'm saying make your own social security fund and you keep going "and what about" as if that's an argument. These externalities are literally what the fund is for. And frankly you should have an HSA for medical expenses because it lets you spend pre-tax money on that stuff.

When you do non Roth it's pre-tax cash so it's much easier to run up your net worth because it's based on money that you haven't paid taxes on yet.

[bluefirebrand]

> Presumably the 67k spend contains the car repair, house repair, hospital stay part you mentioned. Everything you're saying is accounted for

It explicitly is not. The number I am quoting is for essentials, it does not factor in emergencies

> I'm saying make your own social security fund

I'm saying many people can't realistically afford to, so expecting it is absolutely ridiculous

[hparadiz]

$5583 a month is essentials? This is more than what I spend on my mortgage..... and all my bills.... and all my food.... and I live in SoCal.

This conversation is dumb. Put money into an IRA. You lower your taxable income. It's not that hard. You grow your net worth on your untaxed monies and then later when shit hits the fan you can extract it at a lower tax bracket. And you get to gain market gains on cash that would otherwise be spent on taxes. It's how people who are good with money make an extra 10-15k per year while you're being all like "woe is me. i can't afford anything".

This is how you can cover that $10-15k you mention when it does happen. You're welcome.

[robocat]

Disclaimer: Past performance is not indicative of future results