Jake of the Web

I stumbled across this article and was really astounded. The specifics are probably not that realistic for most people:

Bottom line: at the age of 26, if you max out your contributions to your 401k & IRA accounts and walk away, you will have $1 Million by retirement age. The caveat? Maxing out your contributions would cost you just over $20,000. That is not realistic for most people, and it assumes a 10% return - the average annual stock market return.

So the specifics are not all that do-able for most people, but the facts of compound interest are undeniable. they can work for you or against you.