With so many guidelines around saving for retirement — best practices, where to put your savings, and how much to save — it can be difficult to know which path to take. 

The advice usually goes something like this: Save a certain percentage of your income throughout your career, and your retirement fund could be somewhere in the millions. T. Rowe Price and Fidelity both recommend that retirement savers put away at least 15% of their income, while Vanguard recommends 12% to 15%.

This all sounds great in theory, but if you’re earning an average salary, it could feel like a reach. However, experts say it may not be. 

How much do you need to earn to retire as a millionaire?

Last year on Instagram, multimillionaire investor and entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary shared the advice he gives his children to keep them on track toward a healthy nest egg. 

The rule: Take 15% of every dollar you receive, whether it’s from your paychecks, side hustles, or birthday money from grandma, and put it directly into the market.

“If you make $68,000 a year, the average salary, and you do this your entire life, just 15% of your paycheck, you’ll end up a millionaire in retirement at 65,” O’Leary said in his Instagram reel. 

The 15% rule can be a useful starting point, but it may not work for everyone.

“The 15% rule is a good benchmark, but you should also consider factors like how long until you plan to retire,” said Jeffrey Goodrich, a wealth advisor and professor at UCLA. “The timing of funds in the retirement account matters, as the longer the time, the greater the potential for compounding returns.”

Using O’Leary’s example, a worker making $68,000 per year would save about $10,200 per year. If that money is invested and generates an average return of 7%, you could be looking at about $2.2 million in your portfolio by the time you retire. 

However, when setting a retirement savings goal, there are several other factors to consider besides how much you’re earning with each paycheck. 

Is a million-dollar goal realistic for the average American? 

There is no one-size-fits-all number for retirement. Instead, Goodrich recommends calculating the income you’ll need to maintain the lifestyle you want.

“For many, retirement is the long-awaited culmination of a successful career and diligent saving,” Goodrich said. “Many people mistakenly believe they need to accumulate a small fortune to retire. “To plan for retirement, first determine what a retiree’s actual standard of living may be. Start with … the amount the retiree currently brings home.” 

Say you earn the average salary of $68,000 per year: That boils down to about $850 per month that you would have to save for retirement after you’ve covered your living expenses, debt payments, and other financial obligations. 

This may not be an issue if you’re able to keep your living expenses low or don’t have any debt, but many Americans earning this salary may find that $850 figure unattainable if they do have competing financial obligations. 

Eighty-two percent of adults had a credit card in 2025, according to the Federal Reserve’s report on the economic well-being of U.S. households, and just over half of cardholders with income under $100,000 carried balances from month to month. For many Americans, managing these balances is a struggle and could hinder their ability to save for retirement, especially as these balances grow. 

 The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s latest household debt and credit report found that U.S. household debt increased to an all-time high of $18.8 trillion in the first quarter of 2026, fueled by increases in mortgage balances, home equity lines of credit balances, and auto loan balances. 

Apart from debt obligations that could make it difficult to save, even saving $850 per month until you retire may not yield the desired results if you experience any gaps in employment during your career or if you start saving for retirement later in life and your money doesn’t have the same amount of time to compound. 

“What will your overall asset allocation be, and at what age do you expect to retire?” said Goodrich. “For many reasons, workers cannot expect to work forever. AI is changing workplace dynamics; illness can strike at any time, and family needs sometimes take precedence.” 

What to consider when creating your retirement savings plan

Setting a more tailored retirement savings goal starts by evaluating your unique financial situation and retirement goals. This includes: 

Your timeline

Knowing the age at which you hope to retire will help you nail down how many years you have to save and how much time your money has to grow and compound. 

The longer your lead time, the more flexibility that gives you to adjust your savings target over time and work your way up to saving 15% of your income. If you’ve started saving for retirement later on in life, you might find that you’ll need to save more aggressively in order to hit your target in a shorter time frame. Either way, knowing how much time you have can help you break down your goal into smaller benchmarks along the way. 

Retirement needs and lifestyle

If you’re the kind of person who hopes to spend a bit more, travel the world in retirement, or take on new hobbies, this will translate into a larger savings target to fund that lifestyle. However, some workers plan to scale back their spending in their later years and live a more modest lifestyle.

Your savings approach will differ depending on what that lifestyle looks like. Of course, there are factors you can’t account for, such as healthcare expenses, for example, so you may want to build in a comfortable buffer for the unexpected. 

External sources of income

The money you contribute toward your retirement savings might make up a large portion of your retirement income, but it likely won’t be the only source of income you can expect to have. Social Security benefits, contributions from employers who match your contributions, pensions, and inheritances are just a few examples of external income sources that can all make a huge difference in how much you need to save for retirement. 

If your goal is to get to a nest egg of a million dollars or more, that doesn’t necessarily mean that all of that money has to come from your out-of-pocket contributions. You could easily reach your desired savings target once you’ve factored in these additional sources of income. 

However, what is considered “realistic” for one saver may not be realistic, or even necessary, for another. Rather than treating your retirement savings goal as a set figure, considering your current financial situation and obligations, as well as your future goals, can help you settle on a target that’s better suited to you.