I just wrote a piece about debt-burdened households. While I take a different tack and focus on those who simply can’t afford to save, your points are important too: people have higher expenses, people simply don’t know how important saving is, and as I note in my article, sometimes skipping the Starbucks isn’t worth it. To your point about not understanding compounding: I went to two high schools and neither had a financial literacy course. While I learned a lot from my parents, other kids likely didn’t. I think the whole situation is a mess of poor education, misconceptions about money, and wage growth that didn’t keep up with costs of living. Great piece; I enjoyed reading it after being steeped in this topic for awhile!