Hah. You've gotta be rich to be poor. Massive savings are unlikely in a government or other public role where you can get tremendous matching (14% on 6% invest

Hah. You've gotta be rich to be poor. Massive savings are unlikely in a government or other public role where you can get tremendous matching (14% on 6% investment) in 401k. I would have been starving myself for a mediocre payoff in a few decades if I'd stayed in research. $40-odd-k with a $2000/mo take-home after insurance and taxes made it hard to save for a down payment in an area with a $250k median home price while trying to keep up my IRA. Not to mention you lose money every year because the state doesn't always grant COL increases. I lived off of $20/mo 6Mbit DSL that I had to cancel for a month every half year and then renew so I didn't have to pay $60/mo, drove a 10 year old car, didn't own a smartphone, never took a vacation, and cooked all of my meals while shopping only at Costco and the local ethnic markets. It still cost $18,000 to afford a year of life. Oh yeah, student loans. It's like forgetting you have cancer. After a while it becomes part of your identity. 108k at retirement is nothing. You can lose that in one trip to the hospital, one unlucky year in whatever overvalued market you invested in, a few years of predatory rent agreements or having to help raise your grandkids. To someone with the kind of wealth you're thinking of, that's like the $25/mo I send to my checking so my bank doesn't close the account.