> If someone makes a salary of $30,000 a year than they probably take home around $22,000 after taxes and insurance. It would be much less comfortable for them to have a lot of savings. True, not impossible, but much much harder than me since their takehome pay is equal to my "frugal" pay. They would have to give up much more than I do. Obviously you can't max out your 401(k) and IRA on that salary, maxing those out would be more than your take home pay!

Yes, but the amount they'd save is "a few thousand a year". I doubt they'd save more than $3,000/year after the big expenses and random things happening [e.g. dental, medical]

You'd need around $1,000,000 to produce $30,000 a year [3% "safe return"] indefinitely.

http://www.bloomberg.com/personal-finance/calculators/401k/

You'd need to save for 35 years to retire before 60 [using the defaults, no employer match since you need access before you could access a IRA/401k, etc] which is what /r/financialindependence is about.

Mr Money Mustache and all of their idols retire early [by 40] and that is what they emphasize. That simply isn't possible on $30k/year in the US.

EDIT:

> Which was exactly my point. :)

Ah okay. I thought you were like the guy I was replying to who is completely 100% convinced that they can retire in their 30s like /r/FI aims for if they'd just "save more money".