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Making $1m of gross income and making $1m of savings are two very different things.

You probably won't sock away $1m working for a bank.

I got called by a recruiter a few weeks ago pitching lead FX dev role at a day rate of £1000 GBP, which works out to around an annual salary of $350k USD. That's definitely at the high end of the scale but it shows it's not infeasible (£600-£750 is a more typical rate).

You still won't save that much because you will usually live the lifestyle of your peers which will be very expensive.

Not really. People tend to spend more on their hobbies (holidays, geek toys, etc) but it's not as if everyone's expected to spend their evenings snorting coke off expensive strippers.

From my experience people working in the financial sector are much more likely to be putting money into savings or investments than people outside the sector.

Presumably if your objective is to save money and you have some self control then it should not be too big an issue.

Though it is possible to get $1m in 5 years, if you are an workaholic with a quant. PhD:

http://www.quantfinancejobs.com/jobs/quant-trader.asp

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