It is possible. It will take work and change on your part. The first step is to track your spending. The easiest way to do this is get an account with mint, ynab (you need a budget), or personal capital. You can link all of your accounts with the site and app. You can then categorized your spending. After you do this you can start seeing where you can reduce your spending. The major areas you can save on are housing, transportation, food, and miscellaneous. The reverse order is probably the easiest to reduce costs.
The Millionaire Next Door is a great book that talks about the difference in mindset between people who are able to build wealth well and those who are not able to. It is really eye opening if you are always broke.
Given a savings rate, the number of years required is income-invariant. (A given savings rate may not be invariant of course.)
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...
http://awealthofcommonsense.com/2014/02/worlds-worst-market-... http://www.businessinsider.com/30-year-sp-500-returns-impres...
> If successfully saving for retirement was so straightforward and deterministic, there wouldn’t be an entire industry, with consultants and books, built up around trying to help people hopelessly navigate it.
There is a full industry. Saving money (for people with incomes above the median), like losing weight is simple. Yet there are still fat people and broke people.
impossible for most people
>spend <30% of your gross income on housing
impossible for many (most?) places with jobs
>don't borrow to spend more than you make 90% of the time
this factor is indeed entirely up to individuals and a perpetual point of failure... but refusing to borrow and cutting minor expenses is not a road to any kind of wealth for most people. it's a road to retiring poor. most people are on that road.
>impossible for most people
Part of me is tempted to look up statistics to make the point but if you are making more than 150% of the poverty line in the US, you can save 10% of your income, it is a choice not to.
> >spend <30% of your gross income on housing
>impossible for many (most?) places with jobs
It all depends on where you are willing to live. Also, if you move to somewhere to get a job, before you accept the offer you should check to see if it is possible to move there and follow this guideline. If you, you shouldn't move there because you will become worse off.
> refusing to borrow and cutting minor expenses is not a road to any kind of wealth for most people. it's a road to retiring poor. most people are on that road.
Depends on what you count as minor expenses. If I cut out $100 a month of expenses starting at age 25, and put that in an index fund that grows at 8% until I retire at 67 it will be worth $412,077.88. If I want to retire a millionaire I need to save just under $250/month, which is 10% of a 30k a year job. At $30k I am a little sympathetic if you cannot save $250/month. If you are making $50k, it is a matter of choice.
you're out of touch. this is not even the same type of job that the majority of people have access to. people's standard of living is far beneath what you suspect.
>If you are making $50k, it is a matter of choice.
try having a mortgage or high rent, a medical problem, kids, parents who need care, a car, student loans, clothing that aren't tatters, an emergency fund.... and all that comes before even baseline (necessary) entertainment / low-luxuries like internet access and padded chairs.
it isn't a matter of choice for most people. nevermind that 412k isn't enough to retire on if you have any of those burdens above. sure, they could spend $20 a week less on beer. but why would they?
Find a cheaper place to live.
>a medical problem
This is the one I have the most sympathy for, US healthcare is broken, people shouldn't have to go bankrupt to pay for life saving care.
>kids
1) Wait until you can support them until you have them. 2) Just because you spend a lot of money does not mean you will raise better children. Americans as a whole seem to think otherwise.
> parents who need care
Again, I am sympathetic but this doesn't apply to everyone, or even the majority of people.
> a car
You can find a reliable used car for ~10k often times much less than that. Getting a ~20k or worse a ~40k car every 3 years is a waste.
> student loans
On one hand, people were given really bad advice on college. On the other hand, people took really bad advice. High school need to be better informed about the long term cost of college.
> clothing that aren't tatters
Goodwill, Ross, discount stores all great places to get non-tattered clothing.
> an emergency fund
If you are disciplined enough to build an emergency fund, after it is funded, keep being disciplined and start saving for retirement.
You can follow all the textbook advice, study hard, fill in your applications on time, get good grades in college, and once you graduate you could still not have a job for years due to bad luck, unfortunate economic conditions, lack of skill in picking your major, emergencies, etc.
What should I conclude about all the advice on studying?
At forty? Here I am tens of thousands in debt, all that hard work gone. I did all the things society told me to do if I wanted to live the good life, but life can come at you in unexpected ways. For some people it is poor health, others a crazy ex and a truly unfair divorce. Businesses succeed, but sometimes they also fail.
Much like the founding story myth discussion here on HN, we might do well to hear some stories of personal financial failure as vehicles for learning.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-the-death-o...
Plus one of the authors died driving a Corvette, not a Corolla...
Like all self help books, it's about selling hope.
Furthermore, you were entirely unwarranted in making the assumption that the GP has a spending problem instead of an income problem.
Save more if you can though.
If people like Social Security (and they generally do), then all they have to do is vote for politicians who will protect it, and harass politicians when it looks like they won't.
Of course it's fine to plan for a retirement without Social Security... having too much money in retirement is not generally considered a problem.
But if you're feeling despair over Social Security, know that there is something you can do about it: political organizing.
I know my rhetoric sounds like a joke, but I’m 100% serious. You have the fake notion that “employers pay half” (no, the worker pays 100% of it truly), you have its regressive nature (poor people start working earlier and also die earlier, so it’s a redistribution towards the wealthy), you have the fact that it’s sold as a sort of insurance/retirement account when in actuality it’s neither.
Honesty, you’d be hardpressed to find a more awful government “safety net” program. I miss the days when I supported myself only on illegal income and got to avoid the whole issue. Alas, those days are gone.
You have the fake notion that if we didn't have SS, employers would pay you more.
>you have the fact that it’s sold as a sort of insurance/retirement account when in actuality it’s neither.
It is in actuality neither. However, because of it, seniors were the age group who were least likely to be in poverty during the recent recession. During those years, it really acted well as a safety net.
This whole blog series is great, and I'd recommend it, but this particular post is the one responsive to the mortgage and retirement part:
https://earlyretirementnow.com/2017/10/11/the-ultimate-guide...
*http://www.ncsl.org/research/fiscal-policy/state-property-ta...
Plus, your link is more like ~14/50 states if you're only considering lower income folks.