Sadly, to retire by 40, I'd have to be socking away over $50k/year for the next 9 years, and I don't even make 40k gross :( Not gonna happen for me.
That's weird? Why would you need 1 million to retire? In my very nice Midwest state you can buy a decent house for 75K at 3.5% Your total payment, taxes, insurance, utilities will be 6K per year. Your car costs 1K. Your food costs 2K. Misc 2K. So your total costs = 11K. If you have a spouse you can pretty much cut that down to 7K.
So at a SWR of 5 (anticipating social security) you would need only 140K.
But the real answer is that there are numerous sales careers in almost any industry that pay over 100K. I think the "Not gonna happen for me" is self defeating. It doesn't happen to you. You make it happen.
My son at age 29 just went from 24k to 110K in 6 months sell security systems. You might look into that? It requires no HSD, no experience and no up front capitol.
This is the land of opportunity my friend.
Sorry for the preaching --- in that mood this morning.