But it's also true that a very small percentage of people properly prepare for retirement until they start scrambling in their late 50's. Luckily, they're usually at their highest earning at that point and hopefully a lot of their big expenses (kids, house, cars, student loans, etc.) are either paid off or drastically reduced. So people in their mid to late 50's can start saving 1/3 or even half of their income for 10 years to give themselves a cushion, whereas if they'd started at 30 or 35 they'd have been much better off. It just seems impossible at 35 because however much money is coming in, a lot of us tend to spend all of it.