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Originally Posted by GGG
Thats really a failure of education and money management. For 45 years it works out to .76 cents per hour to save up 184k. Targeting 1 million inflation adjusted is $4.13 for a single person. Saving 10% of pre tax household income for the median family income shouldn't be difficult. For the top 50% of Canadians 1 vs 1.5 million is a very reasonable discussion and shouldn’t be phrased in terms of a trade off of live for today or save for the future.
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My parents gave me a copy of the Wealthy Barber when I was 25. Did I start setting aside 10 per cent of my income? Nope. I was making $24k a year as a reporter and it’s not particularly easy to set aside $2.5k a year on that salary. I suppose if I stayed home every weekend instead of going out with friends I could have. But I had ####loads more fun in my 20s than with that money than I’m going to have in my 60s and 70s. I did save up around $5k at one point in my 20s and backpacked around Europe for 3 months, and it’s the best money I ever spent.
Even people who earn a median income often don’t reach it until they’re in middle age. Lots of people who earn $70k at age 45 were making $40k or less at age 30. A lot of people these days don’t buy a house until their mid-30s, and that often drains all of their savings to that point. The experience of those who get a degree and immediately enter a well paying profession at 24 and get on the property ladder at 28 are not typical.
So sure, Canadians could stand to save more. Though I’d argue that’s more a matter of temperament than education. It’s like pointing out there would be a lot less obesity in Canada if everyone consumed 10 per cent fewer calories - knowing it and doing it are two different things. Regardless, I don’t think most Canadians are set up much before 35 or so to start setting aside substantial retirement savings. And the average Canadian certainly doesn’t need $1 million or more set aside to have a comfortable retirement, unless by comfortable you mean either much earlier than typical, or enjoying a more affluent lifestyle than what 80 per cent of Canadians experience in their pre-retirement lives.