> everyone can find an extra $50-100 monthly to stash away for retirement. With compound interest over a 40+ year working career, this is not trivial money.
This amount of money is likely to pay for a couple of surgeries (assuming no other complications or chronic illnesses eating your savings before then) past the age of 50, given how expensive health care is.
It's not a significant amount of money to let you retire in any kind of comfort. Maybe just not starve.
No amount of financial prudence is going to change the math for you if your set of skills caps out at $20/hour on the employment market.
> No amount of financial prudence is going to change the math for you if your set of skills caps out at $20/hour on the employment market
Which is a significant issue. How is it even possible to spend 40+ years doing something (anything) and not acquire skills that earn more than minimum wage or barely above?
40 years is approximately 83,200 working hours. Metaphoric you had 83,200 hours to figure out some sort of skill and work your way up in whatever field you have chosen... but you chose not to. That's a significant issue.
The salary only depends on what you look like or who you know, not what you do. If you're a beautiful chef and can avoid rapists bosses, you can work on a yacht for 2-4 times as much as a chef in an average restaurant and only work three month a year, studying the 9 other months (someone I know is in M1 doing this). If you're a normal chef (or even working at a starred restaurant you don't own), good luck getting the opportunity. And you'll have destroyed ankles, back and feet by the time you're 35 (incidentally, I do not know any second or 'chef de partie' (don't find the translation) over 30yo).
This amount of money is likely to pay for a couple of surgeries (assuming no other complications or chronic illnesses eating your savings before then) past the age of 50, given how expensive health care is.
It's not a significant amount of money to let you retire in any kind of comfort. Maybe just not starve.
No amount of financial prudence is going to change the math for you if your set of skills caps out at $20/hour on the employment market.