Spiderman's $4m actually.I did some calculations last week which I posted in the financial freedom without debt thread.
If you started saving $8500 per year thirty years ago, rising inline with inflation to around $20,000 today, and in an investment returning 6% to 7% per annum then you'd have about a million dollars.
Rolling it forward, if you want the equivalent of $1 million in 2042 (which will be around $2.5 million assuming inflation remains where it is) then you'd need to save $20,000 per annum, rising with inflation. For China's $2 million target, that increases to $40,000, and GeoffW's $4 million requires $80,000.
Looking at the numbers, it strikes me that saving a decent nest egg is a substantial, long-term commitment. It's possible, but it could be painful.
30 years ago $8,500 would have been more than half of my pay (from memory). As it was I wasn't saving anything. I was too busy having a good time. No assets to speak of. Well, books and music (vinyl). So nothing of lasting monetary value. Renting. Saving money was not going to do it for me.
It's only when I found out about property investing (thanks to Peter Spann) that I found there was a way I could provide for that time when my working career finished.
Saving was not enough. Leverage was needed.