A lot of pontificating and generalizations... I'm "triggered" enough now to provide more tools that may help a bunch of you. This stuff doesn't come in 30mins of reading, you'll need hours and days and consistently pursuing educating yourself. As always, it's not about how much you make (or percentage of you last cheque = some retirement necessity). Rather it's always about how much you spend. And the majority of people blow a lot of money starting young... some never clue in, some eventually, and some are ok on the cat-food-life.
Here are another 3 links to help you do your own calcs:
https://investmentcalculator.io/?ref...veincomeearner
https://engaging-data.com/fire-calculator/
https://engaging-data.com/visualizing-4-rule/
First one is the simplest calculator pretty much. If nothing else run this.
This latter one can be used to test your 4% (or whatever withdrawal) against the Trinity Rule. Well worth doing.
As for investments... careful talking to the man at the bank... or even some investment organizations that can push upon you some high MER low risk "investments". Yes, if you're so-inclined then buy market ETF's can help you buy sectors (which is *much* safer than buying individual stocks which is closer to a gamble). Similarly you *can* actually find some low-MER funds at some banks (look at ATB Financial for some of the lowest MER's and better returns for fund families).
Here's a link to "getting started with investing"... sounds like some ya'll may benefit:
https://www.finiki.org/wiki/Getting_started
This next site has lots of good stuff for DIY investors:
https://www.canadianportfoliomanagerblog.com/
If you *really* want to go down the rabbit hole of FIRE then here's Canada's greatest... lots of reading, lots of angsty language, but a ton of advice and perspective:
https://www.millennial-revolution.com/start-here/