Not inflation adjusted, meant 25 to 55 in the second part. 6k a year is only 15% of a gross of 40K a year so it’s likely many people here can and do much more than 500 a month. I think Rick is right that often people get overly aggressive and want to have some monster pile of cash waiting for them and never really enjoy their life along the way.
I think this is a little too rosy, but it does raise another important point that compounding is a double edged sword. If you are ok with working late into your 60s, it’s really not hard to save enough for a nice nest egg to use in conjunction with social security.
By the same token, every year you try to shave OFF of your retirement age gets harder and harder. When you’re even at a 10 year horizon, each dollar you put in isn’t going to make a huge dent by the time you need to start drawing it back out.
So there is a balance to strike. My savings rate is as high right now as it will ever be. At some point I’ll back off, but it will likely be in conjunction with taking a lower paying/less stressful job rather than for purposes of just blowing more money on expensive stuff I never really needed before.