‘Supersavers’ can do a lot better than this. Some of them retire with 50 or 60 times their final salary in financial assets.
Yes, a lot of it is investment gains, but you have to start early, and know how to invest.
You are absolutely correct. It all centers around discipline. As Will Rogers, the cowboy humorist said, that he was more interested in keeping his principal than any interest he might earn.
That makes sense when one considers that one can loose in an investment far faster than one can make the money for the investment.
The important thing is to ignore the idea that money loses value because if one doesn't save and accumulate principal, that is a wad of the stuff, one has nothing anyway.
So is it better to have a wad that may or may not decrease in value, or to have nothing to begin with and be proverty stricken in one's old age.