Amen.
I think it is reasonable to expect even teenagers working a minimum wage job to be able to put aside $20 each week.
Now if an 18-year-old was able to set up an investment account and have the discipline to feed just $20 a week into it for the next 40 years, he would have over half a million dollars (based on a 10% annual return over those 40 years.
Now 10% may seem overly optimistic for many but I've been in my 401(k) plan for 30 years and I've averaged an annual 11.38% return on it over that time.
But let's say that you want to play it safe and invest only in balanced and fixed funds that average 5% a year return. Well then you can still achieve the $500,000 mark by putting in $40 a week over 40 years. Which should be achievable for most.
The majority of employees in my company do not take advantage of the 401(k) and the company match up to 6%. Now think about that. If you work at my company for 40 years and you put in 12% of your income on a average $60,000 salary (6 from you and 6 from the company), that's about $140 a week you are saving. So in my example above, you are building $3.5 million in wealth at 10% return and $1.75 million with just a 5% return.
They just don't see that they are giving up a relatively painless way to wealth.