#Your current income is likely not enough

I see a lot of answers calculcating with incomes that are much higher than yours, here is something for your situation:

If you would keep your current income for the rest of your life, here is approximately how things would turn out after 40 years:

###Easy estimation of impact over 40 years

All interest is calculated relative to the amount in your portfolio. Therefore, lets start with 1 dollar for 40 years:

• 0% annual return: 480 dollar
• 4% annual return: 1181 dollar
• 8% annual return: 3491 dollar
• 12% annual return: 11764 dollar

With your current income, 15% would be 82.5 dollar. At 12% this would over 40 years get you almost 1 million dollar. I would call a required return of more than 12% not 'likely'.

What if your income increases

The good news, is that your income will likely increase, and especially if this happens fast things will start to look up. The bad news is, that your current salary is quite low. So, it basically means that you need to make some big jumps in the next few years in order to make this scenario likely.

• Assuming 8% annual return, and a salary growth of 1% per month for the next 17 years (and 0% growth afterwards). You would end up with a million after 40 years.
• For comparison, assuming 8% annual return and a salary growth of 0.5% per month for the next 40 years, you would end up with 'only' about 660k

Conclusion

If you can quickly move your salary towards ranges that are more common in the US, then 15% of your income can build up to a million before you retire. However, if you just follow gradual growth, you would need to get quite lucky to reach a million.

Note that even if reaching a million appears unlikely, it is probably still a good idea to save!

Your current income is likely not enough

I see a lot of answers calculcating with incomes that are much higher than yours, here is something for your situation:

If you would keep your current income for the rest of your life, here is approximately how things would turn out after 40 years:

Easy estimation of impact over 40 years

All interest is calculated relative to the amount in your portfolio. Therefore, lets start with 1 dollar for 40 years:

• 0% annual return: 480 dollar
• 4% annual return: 1181 dollar
• 8% annual return: 3491 dollar
• 12% annual return: 11764 dollar

With your current income, 15% would be 82.5 dollar. At 12% this would over 40 years get you almost 1 million dollar. I would call a required return of more than 12% not 'likely'.

What if your income increases

The good news, is that your income will likely increase, and especially if this happens fast things will start to look up. The bad news is, that your current salary is quite low. So, it basically means that you need to make some big jumps in the next few years in order to make this scenario likely.

• Assuming 8% annual return, and a salary growth of 1% per month for the next 17 years (and 0% growth afterwards). You would end up with a million after 40 years.
• For comparison, assuming 8% annual return and a salary growth of 0.5% per month for the next 40 years, you would end up with 'only' about 660k

Conclusion

If you can quickly move your salary towards ranges that are more common in the US, then 15% of your income can build up to a million before you retire. However, if you just follow gradual growth, you would need to get quite lucky to reach a million.

Note that even if reaching a million appears unlikely, it is probably still a good idea to save!