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Mary Woulf was 22, a single mother and a college dropout. She went to a temp agency for a receptionist job. She did well on the test, so they sent her to their best client, a national mortgage lender.  

“I was only supposed to be there for three months,” she said. She stayed for 13 years. 

Early on, one of Woulf’s colleagues sat her down. “They knew I was just a single mom and trying to work hard,” she said. The mentor told her about the company’s 401(k) program. 

“They said, ‘One day you might have a million dollars.’ And I said, ‘A million dollars?’ And it seemed impossible.” 

Woulf opened a retirement savings account in 1990. Thirty-five years later, she has a million dollars.  

Before her 2021 retirement, Woulf joined the growing ranks of 401(k) millionaires, Americans who attain a seven-figure balance in a workplace retirement plan, an Individual Retirement Account, or some combination of the two. 

Roughly 2% of retirement savers have million-dollar balances, according to Fidelity, which reported 512,000 401(k) millionaires as of early 2025. The figure covers only Fidelity accountholders. 

Saving $1m in a 401(k) sounds easy. It isn’t. 

Based on the stories of six 401(k) millionaires profiled below, saving a million dollars for retirement sounds easy. If everyone opened a 401(k) account at age 22, set aside 10% of their pre-tax income and saved continuously until retirement, we might be a nation of 401(k) millionaires.  

But life is seldom so simple. Lots of us don’t start saving for retirement until midlife, when retirement is breathing down our necks. Millions of Americans step out of the workforce to raise children, putting retirement savings on hold. Others change jobs and lose track of their retirement accounts. Financial crises compel many workers to raid their retirement plans. 

And many retirement savers don’t save enough.  

USA TODAY compiled this report from interviews and correspondence with dozens of retirement savers contacted through the Reddit community r/retirement.

When Woulf opened her retirement savings account, she was saving only 3% of her pre-tax salary, because her employer matched that amount dollar for dollar, and it was all the salary she could spare. She was earning $8 an hour. 

“I was living paycheck to paycheck, but I did it, because I thought I was investing in my future, and my son’s future,” she said. “I had to forego things like cable TV. I would take my son camping instead of taking trips.” 

As time passed, Woulf stopped noticing the deductions from her paychecks. She earned a series of promotions: first to customer service representative, then to credit risk analyst. As her salary rose, Woulf increased her contributions. 

Over the years, Woulf changed employers. At age 50, she raised her retirement contribution to the maximum allowed by law.  

By the time Woulf retired, she was a 401(k) millionaire. She is 58 now and living in Simi Valley, California. Woulf had married at age 42, and her husband was also a good saver. Her financial adviser said she had plenty of money and could afford to stop working. 

“We’re living off the interest and not even cutting into the principal at this point,” she said.  

Here’s how much to save in a 401(k) 

Retirement planners generally recommend two savings goals with 401(k) plans.  

At a minimum, they say, you should try to save as much as your employer is willing to match.  

In a typical model, the employer matches half of every dollar a worker contributes, up to a maximum of 6% of the worker’s pay. If you contribute 6%, the match boosts it to 9%. If the employer matches that salary dollar for dollar, 6% becomes 12%. 

Ideally, retirement savers should aim to save at least 10% of their pre-tax salary. With a generous employer match, 10% can easily become 15%. That figure, 15%, is the ultimate 401(k) savings goal. 

When Joy El-Amin went to work for the Apple computer company in the 1980s, at age 22, she opened a 401(k). She had heard the goal was to save 15% of your salary, so she did. 

But El-Amin had misread the retirement savings rule. The 15% goal includes the matching funds your employer offers. She thought you had to invest 15% of your own salary.  

That misapprehension served her well. After Apple’s employer match, El-Amin was setting aside 21% of her pre-tax salary. She didn’t realize she was exceeding the savings goal until three years ago.  

Today, at age 60, the Atlanta resident has $1.45 million in retirement savings from more than three decades of work. The total is all the more impressive considering El-Amin took eight years off to raise her children. Even then, she made regular contributions to an IRA from a part-time real estate business.  

As a younger member of the baby boom, born in the mid-60s, El-Amin said she knew she was part of the “big 401(k) experiment: Can people save for their own retirement?”  

As workplace pensions faded in the 1980s and 1990s, retirement savings pivoted to 401(k) and IRAs, and employees were expected to create their own post-employment financial cushions.   

“It’s all on you,” she said. “There’s no one coming to save you.” 

The ultimate retirement goal: Max out your 401(k) 

The ultimate goal in retirement savings, for those who can afford it, is to push your contributions to the legal limit. The maximum allowable contribution to a 401(k) account is $23,500 in 2025 for most workers. If you’re willing to part with that much salary, you can save a lot of money in a very short time. 

But if you spend two or three decades continuously saving for retirement, even with smaller contributions, your odds of becoming a 401(k) millionaire improve dramatically.  

The reason is the stock market, which has delivered average annual returns over 10% in the past several decades. In an example provided by Investopedia, $100 invested in 1957 would be worth $82,000 in 2025.  

As a young engineer in Silicon Valley, Richard Eckman saw an ad for Fidelity Investments. It showed a woman biting into a big slice of pizza. In 35 years, the ad said, this pizza will be worth $14,800. 

He decided, then and there, to get serious about his 401(k).  

Eckman, from Rockford, Illinois, had finished college in 1984. He was a mechanical engineer, and the only jobs were on the West Coast. He drove to Mountain View, California, with $200 borrowed from his dad, and he took a job working on semiconductors. 

His starting salary was $34,000, which was good for the time. He opened a 401(k). When he saw the pizza ad, he raised his contribution rate to 15% of his income. The employer matched the first 3%.  

“I think I inherited this idea from my father that saving money was just another bill that had to be paid, but you were paying yourself,” he said. “And sometimes there would not be food in the fridge, because I was so obsessed with saving, but I never backed off.” 

Eckman changed employers over the years and progressed into sales engineering, a job that combines technical knowledge and sales skills. But he never missed a year of retirement saving. 

Two pieces of “dumb luck,” he said, helped push him into the ranks of 401(k) millionaires. The first came in 2008: He was changing brokers, so he moved all of his retirement savings into cash. Before he had reinvested it, the market crashed. He reinvested when the stock market was down 40% from its peak, effectively avoiding the Great Recession. 

The second episode wasn’t just luck. In 2013, Eckman was standing in line at Costco, fuming about how long it was.  

“So, I went home and I bought 100 shares of Costco,” he said. “The next month, the lines were longer, and I bought 100 more shares.”  

Costco became Eckman’s first 10x stock, multiplying tenfold in value.  

And Eckman avoided some of the financial calamities that befall many other retirement savers, like spending a long time out of the job market or plundering his account to cover an emergency. 

“There was no devastating divorce,” he said. “There were no disasters. No medical problems. No relatives in dire straits. So, I guess some of the good luck is there.” 

Eckman retired a month before his 59th birthday, after training his replacement. Now 62 and living in San Jose, he’s building a modest second home in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and making wine, 800 bottles a year for friends and family. 

“I realized I can make more money, and it wouldn’t matter,” he said. “But I can’t make more time.” 

Not all 401(k) millionaires have six-figure salaries

Mary Woulf, Joy El-Amin and Richard Eckman all became 401(k) millionaires without doctor or lawyer salaries.  

Elisa Brown, 49, of Amarillo, Texas, became a 401(k) millionaire without ever earning six figures.

Brown started her career in 2000 as a flight attendant with Southwest Airlines, “a naïve 24-year-old that basically just wanted to fly for free,” she said.  

An old college friend asked if the airline offered a 401(k). Yes, she replied, but not until she had worked there for a year. Okay, he told her: When you become eligible, open an account and contribute as much of your salary as they will match.  

Southwest Airlines offered a dollar-for-dollar match on 401(k) contributions up to 7.3% of Brown’s salary. After a year, she opened an account. She thinks she started at 8% of her pre-tax pay. Later on, she upped her contributions to 10%. 

“Out of sight, out of mind,” she said. “I never saw it. It just continued to grow.” 

Twenty-five years later, the balance has flown past $1 million.  

Brown’s starting salary at Southwest was less than $20,000. She has never earned more than $100,000.  

She became a 401(k) millionaire because of three things: Her employer’s generous match, which amplified the value of her contributions; stock-market index funds, which track the performance of the market as a whole; and a quarter century of continuous contributions.  

And this: Brown never touched her retirement account. 

“Doing nothing is doing something,” she said. 

Brown eventually married the old college friend. Today, he is also a 401(k) millionaire. Together, they’re worth twice that much. 

“We don’t keep up with the Joneses,” Brown said, summarizing their approach to finance. She says she grew up poor, and she knows how to economize.  

“Our net worth is over $2 million, and I went to the thrift store today,” she said. 

To make $1m in a 401(k), it helps to stay put 

If you want to become a 401(k) millionaire, it helps to spend your whole career at the same company, as Brown did.  

More than $1.7 trillion sits in lost or forgotten 401(k) accounts, often because a worker left a job and forgot to take the savings with them.  

It also helps if your company offers a retirement savings program in the first place. Nearly half of private-sector employees work for companies that do not offer retirement savings, according to AARP.   

Bruce Scott, of Covina, California, was fortunate enough to spend his entire career at a large company with a solid 401(k) plan. 

When Scott went to work for Pacific Bell in 1991, the employee union told him about the company’s workplace retirement plan.  

Scott opened a 401(k) account, but he didn’t feel he could spare even 5% of his paycheck, which the phone company would have matched. Scott was earning $37,000 a year. 

“I was married, had two small children,” he said. “At that point in my life, I had just gotten out of the Army, was looking to establish myself.” 

Instead, Scott made himself a promise: Every time he got a pay raise, he’d divert some of it to his 401(k).  

The pay raises came, and each time, Scott boosted his contribution rate by 1% or 2%. Eventually, he was contributing 16% of his salary. With the company match, his total savings rate was 22%. 

Thirty-one years later, when Scott retired from Pacific Bell, his 401(k) was worth $550,000. He cashed out his pension, which was worth another $545,000, and – voilà – he was a 401(k) millionaire.  

He credits his union, which staged regular expert presentations on retirement saving for Pac Bell employees.  

“The earlier you start planning, the more education you get, the less scary it is, and the more control you’re gonna feel over the decision when it comes,” he said of his retirement. “Starting early is the biggest thing.” 

Think of a 401(k) as money for your future self 

One reason why so few Americans become 401(k) millionaires is the temptation to raid a retirement account for an emergency, or for an everyday expense.  

The share of Vanguard retirement savers who make “hardship” withdrawals has nearly tripled in four years, from 1.7% in 2020 to 4.8% in 2024, the company reports.  

If you want to avoid that urge, retirement planners say, it helps to think of the money as belonging to someone else: Not you, but the future you. 

Jackie Borja of Los Angeles opened an IRA when she was 22. The inspiration came from her mom, who told her she should be putting money away. 

Borja’s mother was a billing clerk, her father an industrial tools salesman. They kept cars for 20 years and never, ever bought a new TV. They opened savings accounts for their children. Jackie would marvel as her savings grew every year from birthday money.  

At 26, Borja got a job as a high school counselor, which gave her access to a 403(b), the public-employee version of a 401(k). Now, she had two retirement accounts. She maxed them out, contributing as much as she was allowed. 

“The amount started growing over time,” Borja said. “But my mindset was that it was not my money.” 

By maxing out her contributions to two retirement accounts, Borja was able to amass $1 million in retirement savings in about 20 years, all on a high school counselor’s salary.  

“You need to start early,” she said. 

Borja retired last year, at 55. Now 56, she has retirement funds to burn. She will draw a school-system pension at 62. She’ll also get full Social Security, when the time comes, thanks to a recent law change.  

At some point, she may even start thinking of the money as hers.