At 22, Mary Woulf was a single mom and a school dropout. She went to a temp company searching for receptionist work. She examined effectively, so the company dispatched her to its greatest shopper, a nationwide mortgage lender.
“I used to be solely presupposed to be there for 3 months,” she stated. She stayed for 13 years.
Early on, one in every of Woulf’s colleagues sat her down. “They knew I used to be only a single mother and making an attempt to work onerous,” she stated. The mentor instructed her in regards to the firm’s 401(ok) program.
“They stated, ‘In the future you might need 1,000,000 {dollars}.’ And I stated, ‘One million {dollars}?’ And it appeared unattainable.”
Woulf opened a retirement financial savings account in 1990. Thirty-six years later, she has 1,000,000 {dollars}.
Earlier than her retirement in 2021, Woulf joined the rising ranks of 401(ok) millionaires, Individuals who attain a seven-figure stability in a office retirement plan, an Particular person Retirement Account, or some mixture of the 2.
Constancy stories a file variety of 401(ok) millionaires, 769,000, as of mid-2026. The determine covers solely Constancy account holders.
Saving $1million in a 401(ok) sounds straightforward. It is not.
In August 2025, USA TODAY instructed the tales of six 401(ok) millionaires, drawing on interviews and correspondence with dozens of retirement savers contacted by the Reddit group r/retirement. We’re re-upping the story now to encourage different retirement savers. Some info and figures might have modified because the article first appeared.
Primarily based on the 401(ok) millionaires profiled beneath, saving $1 million for retirement sounds straightforward. If everybody opened a 401(ok) account at age 22, put aside 10% of their pre-tax earnings and saved constantly till retirement, we may be a nation of 401(ok) millionaires.
However life is seldom so easy. A lot of us do not begin saving for retirement till midlife, when retirement is respiration down our necks. Thousands and thousands of Individuals step out of the workforce to boost youngsters and put retirement financial savings on maintain. Others change jobs and lose observe of their retirement accounts. Monetary crises compel many individuals to raid their retirement plans.
And lots of retirement savers do not save sufficient.
When Woulf opened her retirement financial savings account, she was saving solely 3% of her pre-tax wage, as a result of her employer matched that quantity greenback for greenback, and it was all of the wage she might spare. She was incomes $8 an hour.
“I used to be residing paycheck to paycheck, however I did it, as a result of I assumed I used to be investing in my future and my son’s future,” she stated. “I needed to forego issues like cable TV. I might take my son tenting as a substitute of taking journeys.”
Mary Woulf is a 401(ok) millionaire. She’s been saving since age 22.
As time handed, Woulf stopped noticing the deductions from her paychecks. She earned a sequence of promotions: first to customer support consultant, then to credit score threat analyst. As her wage rose, Woulf elevated her contributions.
Over time, Woulf modified employers. At age 50, she raised her retirement contribution to the utmost allowed by regulation.
By the point Woulf retired, she was a 401(ok) millionaire. She is 58 now and residing in Simi Valley, California. Woulf had married at age 42, and her husband was additionally saver. Her monetary adviser stated she had loads of cash and will afford to cease working.
“We’re residing off the curiosity and never even reducing into the principal at this level,” she stated.
Here is how a lot to avoid wasting in a 401(ok)
Retirement planners usually suggest two financial savings objectives with 401(ok) plans.
At a minimal, they are saying, you need to attempt to save as a lot as your employer is keen to match.
In a typical mannequin, the employer matches half of each greenback a employee contributes, as much as a most of 6% of the employee’s pay. When you contribute 6%, the match boosts it to 9%. If the employer matches that wage greenback for greenback, 6% turns into 12%.
Ideally, retirement savers ought to goal to avoid wasting a minimum of 10% of their pre-tax wage. With a beneficiant employer match, 10% can simply turn out to be 15%. That determine, 15%, is the last word 401(ok) financial savings aim.
When Pleasure El-Amin went to work for the Apple pc firm within the Nineteen Eighties, at age 22, she opened a 401(ok). She had heard the aim was to avoid wasting 15% of your wage, so she did.
However El-Amin had misinterpret the retirement financial savings rule. The 15% aim consists of the matching funds your employer affords. She thought you needed to make investments 15% of your personal wage.
That misapprehension served her effectively. After Apple’s employer match, El-Amin was setting apart 21% of her pre-tax wage. She did not understand she was exceeding the financial savings aim till three years in the past.
Right this moment, at age 60, the Atlanta resident has $1.45 million in retirement financial savings from greater than three many years of labor. The overall is all of the extra spectacular contemplating El-Amin took eight years off to boost her youngsters. Even then, she made common contributions to an IRA from a part-time actual property enterprise.
As a youthful member of the child increase, born within the mid-60s, El-Amin stated she knew she was a part of the “massive 401(ok) experiment: Can folks save for their very own retirement?”
As office pensions pale within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, retirement financial savings pivoted to 401(ok) and IRAs, and workers had been anticipated to create their very own post-employment monetary cushions.
“It is all on you,” she stated. “There is no one coming to avoid wasting you.”
The last word retirement aim: Max out your 401(ok)
The last word aim in retirement financial savings, for many who can afford it, is to push your contributions to the authorized restrict. The utmost allowable contribution to a 401(ok) account is $23,500 in 2025 for many workers. When you’re keen to half with that a lot wage, it can save you some huge cash in a really brief time.
However in the event you spend two or three many years constantly saving for retirement, even with smaller contributions, your odds of changing into a 401(ok) millionaire enhance dramatically.
The reason being the inventory market, which has delivered common annual returns over 10% previously a number of many years. In an instance offered by Investopedia, $100 invested in 1957 can be value $82,000 in 2025.
As a younger engineer in Silicon Valley, Richard Eckman noticed an advert for Constancy Investments. It confirmed a lady biting into an enormous slice of pizza. In 35 years, the advert stated, this pizza can be value $14,800.
He determined, then and there, to get severe about his 401(ok).
Eckman, from Rockford, Illinois, had completed school in 1984. He was a mechanical engineer, and the one jobs had been on the West Coast. He drove to Mountain View, California, with $200 borrowed from his dad, and he took a job engaged on semiconductors.
His beginning wage was $34,000, which was good for the time. He opened a 401(ok). When he noticed the pizza advert, he raised his contribution price to fifteen% of his earnings. The employer matched the primary 3%.
“I believe I inherited this concept from my father that saving cash was simply one other invoice that needed to be paid, however you had been paying your self,” he stated. “And typically there wouldn’t be meals within the fridge, as a result of I used to be so obsessive about saving, however I by no means backed off.”
An advert about pizza impressed Richard Eckman to get severe about retirement financial savings. He is now a 401(ok) millionaire.
Eckman modified employers over time and progressed into gross sales engineering, a job that mixes technical data and gross sales abilities. However he by no means missed a 12 months of retirement saving.
Two items of “dumb luck,” he stated, helped push him into the ranks of 401(ok) millionaires. The primary got here in 2008: He was altering brokers, so he moved all of his retirement financial savings into money. Earlier than he had reinvested it, the market crashed. He reinvested when the inventory market was down 40% from its peak, successfully avoiding the Nice Recession.
The second episode wasn’t simply luck. In 2013, Eckman was standing in line at Costco, fuming about how lengthy it was.
“So, I went residence and I purchased 100 shares of Costco,” he stated. “The following month, the traces had been longer, and I purchased 100 extra shares.”
Costco grew to become Eckman’s first 10x inventory − multiplying tenfold in worth.
And Eckman prevented among the monetary calamities that befall many different retirement savers, like spending a very long time out of the job market or plundering his account to cowl an emergency.
“There was no devastating divorce,” he stated. “There have been no disasters. No medical issues. No kin in dire straits. So, I assume among the good luck is there.”
Eckman retired a month earlier than his 59th birthday, after coaching his alternative. Now 62 and residing in San Jose, he is constructing a modest second residence within the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and making wine, 800 bottles a 12 months for family and friends.
“I noticed I can make more cash, and it would not matter,” he stated. “However I can not make extra time.”
Not all 401(ok) millionaires have six-figure salaries
Mary Woulf, Pleasure El-Amin and Richard Eckman all grew to become 401(ok) millionaires with out physician or lawyer salaries.
Elisa Brown, 49, of Amarillo, Texas, grew to become a 401(ok) millionaire with out ever incomes six figures.
Brown began her profession in 2000 as a flight attendant with Southwest Airways, “a naive 24-year-old that mainly simply needed to fly free of charge,” she stated.
An previous school buddy requested if the airline supplied a 401(ok). Sure, she replied, however not till she had labored there for a 12 months. OK, he instructed her: While you turn out to be eligible, open an account and contribute as a lot of your wage as the corporate would match.
Southwest Airways supplied a dollar-for-dollar match on 401(ok) contributions as much as 7.3% of Brown’s wage. After a 12 months, she opened an account. She thinks she began at 8% of her pre-tax pay. Afterward, she raised her contributions to 10%.
“Out of sight, out of thoughts,” she stated. “I by no means noticed it. It simply continued to develop.”
Twenty-five years later, the stability has flown previous $1 million.
Brown’s beginning wage at Southwest was lower than $20,000. She has by no means earned greater than $100,000.
She grew to become a 401(ok) millionaire due to three issues: Her employer’s beneficiant match, which amplified the worth of her contributions; inventory market index funds, which observe the efficiency of the market as a complete; and a quarter-century of steady contributions.
And this: Brown by no means touched her retirement account.
“Doing nothing is doing one thing,” she stated.
Brown ultimately married the previous school buddy. Right this moment, he’s additionally a 401(ok) millionaire. Collectively, they’re value twice that a lot.
“We do not sustain with the Joneses,” Brown stated, summarizing their method to cash. She says she grew up poor, and he or she is aware of methods to economize.
“Our web value is over $2 million, and I went to the thrift retailer as we speak.”
To make $1M in a 401(ok), it helps to remain put
If you wish to turn out to be a 401(ok) millionaire, it helps to spend your complete profession on the identical firm, as Brown did.
Greater than $1.7 trillion sits in misplaced or forgotten 401(ok) accounts, actually because a employee left a job and forgot to take the financial savings with them.
It additionally helps if your organization affords a retirement financial savings program within the first place. Almost half of private-sector workers work for firms that don’t supply retirement financial savings, in keeping with AARP.
Bruce Scott of Covina, California, had the great fortune to spend his whole profession at a big firm with a strong 401(ok) plan.
When Scott went to work for Pacific Bell in 1991, the worker union instructed him in regards to the firm’s office retirement plan.
Scott opened a 401(ok) account, however he did not really feel he might spare even 5% of his paycheck, which the telephone firm would have matched. Scott was incomes $37,000 a 12 months.
“I used to be married, had two young children,” he stated. “At that time in my life, I had simply gotten out of the Military, was trying to set up myself.”
Bruce Scott (with spouse Lisa) constructed a seven-figure retirement stability at Pacific Bell.
As an alternative, Scott made himself a promise: Each time he acquired a pay elevate, he’d divert a few of it to his 401(ok).
The pay raises got here, and every time, Scott boosted his contribution price by 1% or 2%. Ultimately, he was contributing 16% of his wage. With the corporate match, his complete financial savings price was 22%.
Thirty-one years later, when Scott retired from Pacific Bell, his 401(ok) was value $550,000. He cashed out his pension, which was value one other $545,000, and – voilà – he was a 401(ok) millionaire.
He credit his union, which staged common professional displays on retirement saving for Pac Bell workers.
“The sooner you begin planning, the extra training you get, the much less scary it’s, and the extra management you are gonna really feel over the choice when it comes,” he stated of his retirement. “Beginning early is the most important factor.”
Consider a 401(ok) as cash in your future self
One cause why so few Individuals turn out to be 401(ok) millionaires is the temptation to raid a retirement account for an emergency, or for an on a regular basis expense.
The share of Vanguard retirement savers who make “hardship” withdrawals has practically tripled in 4 years, from 1.7% in 2020 to 4.8% in 2024, the corporate stories.
If you wish to keep away from that urge, retirement planners say, it helps to consider the cash as belonging to another person: Not you, however the future you.
Jackie Borja of Los Angeles opened an IRA when she was 22. The inspiration got here from her mother, who instructed her she must be placing cash away.
Borja’s mom was a billing clerk, her father an industrial instruments salesman. They saved vehicles for 20 years and by no means, ever purchased a brand new TV. They opened financial savings accounts for his or her youngsters. Jackie would marvel as her financial savings grew yearly from birthday cash.
At 26, Borja acquired a job as a highschool counselor, which gave her entry to a 403(b), the public-employee model of a 401(ok). Now, she had two retirement accounts. She maxed them out, contributing as a lot as she was allowed.
“The quantity began rising over time,” Borja stated. “However my mindset was that it was not my cash.”
By maxing out her contributions to 2 retirement accounts, Borja was capable of amass $1 million in retirement financial savings in about 20 years, all on a highschool counselor’s wage.
“You have to begin early,” she stated.
Borja retired final 12 months, at 55. Now 56, she has retirement cash to burn. She is going to draw a college system pension at 62. She’ll additionally get full Social Safety, when the time comes, due to a latest regulation change.
In some unspecified time in the future, she might even begin considering of the cash as hers.
