One of the nice things about living on liquid assets, you can move anywhere in the world and geo-arbitrage.

Silly. To many confuse wealth w income. Its not unpopular its just incorrect.

If you have a salable asset, its part of you net worth calc. I buy and sell lots in new subdivisions occasionally. They don't generate income. The ones I own currently have appreciated 30-35% - better be part of of my net worth because the bank lent on them.

Lets say a pile of specie, a paid off vacation home, a mint early vintage Rover or a Ma-Deuce - not part of my net Hell i bet a good 10% of Dick Soloves net was wrapped up in his Roller collection. Yea income is great, no bearing on wealth.

I was just thinking the locale is the issue

Not uncommon at all. People refuse to believe its achievable so they fail to "sacrifice" and work at it.

https://dqydj.com/how-many-millionaires-decamillionaires-america/

I'm not motivated by how big my bank account is, but I'd like to make a comfortable middle class living while raising my kids with strong conservative values.

Im well on my way to that.

Ive managed and grown sales based companies well into the million+ range, but decided that the personal investment out of my health (via stress, lack of sleep, etc.) wasn't worth it.  More power to the folks that want to do it.

I dont want to live past 65. So no.

You are correct of course - most Americans have very little saved and are often living check-to-check.

If that situation hasn't changed by the time they are in their mid to late 30s, it probably won't, ever, unless they get lucky.   Barring such luck, those people will probably never fully retire or will live in or near poverty when they do retire, unless they have some form of pension to supplement SS. Sure, $1MM saved is a lot to those people.  So would be $50K.  They'll likely have neither.  Perhaps that's on them, perhaps it's not, but it is what it is.

When people here say $1MM isn't enough to support retirement, they are most likely referring to a target amount for that smaller percentage of people who are actively saving for retirement.

As noted previously, if you plan to live off the (conservative) investment performance of your retirement savings, you will be living on perhaps $40K annually before taxes and healthcare expenses, which will almost certainly be increasing at the same time you are losing employer-sponsored healthcare.  And that's the amount you will get if you don't reinvest some of your earnings to keep pace with increased cost of living.  Of course, you could pull out more and slowly burn down the principal, acknowledging you won't live forever, but who likes to plan based on when they think they'll die?

Still, $40K plus SS probably seems like a decent amount to many Americans, but again, most of those folks have almost nothing saved.  It likely does not seem like a lot to people who have been earning enough to support saving a decent amount for retirement and who have been doing so for decades.  Many of those folks likely hope to have a greater income to support an active retirement lifestyle that spans many golden years.  And it's that expectation for a specific lifestyle that keeps them working and saving.  Hell, perhaps like many here, my wife and I could quit our jobs and retire tomorrow if we wanted to go live in a trailer in WV.  That's not our retirement dream, so we keep working.  To someone living in a trailer in WV, we must look like idiots.  

But I'm not Ric Edelman, so I could also be full of shit.

and what's a "decent" pension?

1100 sq ft no garage, less than an acre.

It was pointed out to me that I B.  But then again, a million today won't buy half of what a million would in 1960.  It doesn't mean squat anymore.

No, it is easier than ever.

Based on where we are at, I should hit my first $1m around 44. Wife is a little behind that and should around 48 if I remembering my numbers right.

I am in the easier than ever camp as well.

In my lifetime the mechanics of wealth accumulation have become much easier.

Doesn't mean that it is easy, but it is easier than what it used to be.

We're pretty close to there, depending on what you count or don't count.

We're both 47, Dual Income - No Kids.

My wife works at Wal-Mart, and has for 25 years.  I'm active duty, with almost 29 years in.  I'll retire from active duty next year, and my pension will be ~65k/year.  I hope to get a government job closely related to the field I'm in.  If not, no worries.

We have roughly 750k in retirement (401k/Roth/TSP) that we can't touch without penalty for ten years or so, 100k in taxable, 25k in the bank, and 125k equity in the house.

But, we're fixing to build a house on land we own for about 330, and we'll start all over.

I think the biggest mistake people make (myself included), is not starting early.  I didn't start investing until 2003.  If we'd started earlier, we'd probably have "F-You" money.

As a REAL example, with REAL money - we invested ~$2600 in a mutual fund (PRGFX) in 2003, and added a little to it over time until our net investment was ~5300 in 2009.  Reinvested all dividends.

Today it's worth $34,000.

So, I can buy a new truck with the $5000 I invested 16 years ago.

Time in the market, not timing the market.

This. By definition will require my being worth well more than a million.

Not a millionaire but I do have enough to be happy. I will eventually be a millionaire but it isn't a big thing for me.
OP, you need to define millionaire. Is it cash? Assets? Do pensions count as assets? Do company assets count? Do unrealized profits count? It can get complex.

Interesting that a number is so different to many. I have x amount stashed away and I’m 50. Decided to quit working day to day somewhat and practically walked away from a profitable business. I’m building a house on my farm, I have a few rental properties and the wife will be done with her full time job in 4 years but has a solid flexible part time business started. I plan on driving a school bus for our insurance needs(offsets a few more trips a year for us). We love to garden and can etc. and I’m putting a 2 acre hops yard in too. I don’t really care about money anymore as I know that I live on borrowed time now. This is “retirement” for a “millionaire”, the flexibility of not being tied down to a normal job is awesome.  Life is good and I haven’t been happier in a decade.

I am doing decent with my retirement plans so far.  Been a few SNAFUS along the way though.

One thing I keep in mind too is something a high school friend told me about 15 years ago.  He lost his wife to leukemia when she was in her mid 20's. One day he said "you're not promised tomorrow, you gotta think about the future, but go do things while you're young."  It stuck with me knowing what he went through.

I'm in my early 50s.  I passed it a few years back, but I couldn't retire right now without cutting back significantly on my budget.   If I were 60, it would be different, but carrying private health insurance and getting the kids through college makes it a lot tighter than I would like for right now.

This is pretty spot on. In some areas of the country like CO, CA, or NYC you really don’t impress a lot of people with $1M. It doesn’t go as far as you’d think, a decent house where I live is around half a million.

No I just want to pay off my house and live on s minimal income.

If you want me to be your sugar daddy, I'm definitely gonna need some pics.  Recent.

I just want to enjoy my short time here.
Life as a Career Firefighter is not the track to financial wealth

I be never been driven by money, at least not enough to make sacrifices.

Of course I want to be a millionaire.  Not enough to change my life to pursue that.  I have a good paying job and save a lot, I'm not going to spend even more of my life than I already do working to become make more or hatch some pie-in-the-sky scheme.

Despite a divorce and the crash of 2009 I have a net worth over a million and a half dollars and no debt going into retirement. Working for 40 years in a good career straight out of college, saving in the company predecessor to 401k from day one, not smoking, not drinking much or doing drugs certainly helps.
I could have had a lot more if it weren't for one bad real estate choice that went south in 2009 and spending over $300,000 on my kids private school education (No those weren't bribes to rowing coaches). Because when I was trying to keep the real estate investment afloat I wasn't saving anything for retirement and was selling off land to try to save it. And while I was writing $50,000 tuition checks to the kids prep school when they were both in high school at the same time, I wasn't saving much either. Luckily college didn't cost anything out of pocket, Bright Futures Scholarships and Florida Prepaid are a wonderful thing.

It has always amazed me how much people waste on cigarettes alone. Do the math on what a carton a week costs and what that put into an IRA or 401K with a company match would add up to in 40 years. Add a case or two of beer a week let alone blowing your paycheck on Friday night drinking ( yeah I did some of that when I was chasing skirt)
and ir really adds up fast.

All it takes is disciplined saving.  Start as young as you can.  Time is your friend.

Let the power of compound interest work for you. Be prepared to see your investments go up and down, sometimes to a degree that scares you.  LONG TERM is your state of mind. Risk can be your friend.

There's a BIG difference between saving 1 million dollars out of your paycheck and making your saved money make you a millionaire.

Damn right- just saving wages in jars buried in your backyard is stupid.

I send a bunch of Ben Franklins out into the world to find some more Ben Franklins and come back to my house for a Franklin family reunion. Then we repeat the process. There are no freeloading Franklins at my house... they have a job to do.

Well almost $3,000 a month from SS, plus another $1,000 a month from a small pension from my first employer, So $48,000/year. And then there is the wife. She will get another $36,000 from SS and about $60,000 from her pension =$144,000/year , without even touching the 4% on the IRA/401K. But of course at age 70 you have to start taking mandatory distributions.  Of course that's all before taxes.
It pays to have a wife who had a job that paid as well , if not better, as yours did.

Luckily New homes are not the only game in town. We bought about a year and a half ago. 3BR 2BA 2 car Garage on 3 acres plus a 1 br MIL Apt with 2nd kitchen, LR and laundry for $197,000. It was a 10 year old foreclosure that needed new flooring and some cosmetic work. A new house would have cost more than twice that in the same neighborhood.

'$166/month @ 8% for 45 years - tax sheltered - come see me next week we need to get some things set up'

That was in a envelope my grandfather gave me when I graduated along with tuition for Catholic HS I didn't use and a gift. He made me throw in a couple grand to top off the start.

Pretty simple, the number was the IRA limit (and about all I could afford). Wasn't always easy, Vanguards done their job.

Had other options last 18 years (SEP) which I've maxed, do some real estate, have some other stuff (team equity, other investments) so I'll be ok. As I said earlier, my major concerns been building an income stream so I could walk if I needed. That's had an effect on my present and future net worth, but it was absolutely necessary.

But it all started when I realized it was possible because it was laid out in front of me. Trying to instill and educate my kids. Made my kids Roth up all the earnings to date so they'll have a much better head start than I did, but that creates issues as well. They'll likely need it, but they're all more sophisticated than I was at that age so I'm encouraged.

It's never too late - $167k start $416/month (again IRA limit) @ 8% over 20 gets you pretty close too.