Of all generational cohorts, older millennials are most likely to generate enough income to retire comfortably, according to the latest Vanguard Retirement Readiness report.
Specifically, millennials aged 37-41 have the greatest chance of landing a comfortable retirement.
All metrics are a guideline. You need to match that to your lifestyle. So if you have been living off cheap ramen for 20 years because you want to FIRE, that is going to be a factor in how much you need after the fact. Similarly, if you want to travel the world, you need to save up more.
But it is not weird to pick a semi-standardized metric, even if it doesn’t describe you perfectly.
I suggested an alternative semi-standardized metric that still wouldn’t describe everyone perfectly, but I suspect would do a better job than the one used. I don’t think its weird to use one. I think the one chosen is weird, even if I acknowledged one of the reasons why they probably used it (easy of data). Current spending would still be a terrible estimate for the FIRE-types who work in HCOL places and move to LCOL places for retirement, but I think it would much better account for ordinary 25th percentile income households who live paycheck to paycheck. But I doubt Vanguard really cares if their metrics are useful for poorer people who live paycheck to paycheck since its obvious they’re not going to have enough anyways and not exactly their target demographic.