Also you saying about not living on $50K a year.... Again you are out of touch with reality.
Here is an example for me.
House payment (i live in a brand new 3 bed 2 bath townhome) $900
Fee's for town home (maintenance) $150
Truck Payment (2013 F150 Crew Cab) $350
Food expense for a month $250
Cable, Utilties, Cell phone $500
Health Insurance $400
Auto/home insurance $150
Total $2700
That is a total of $32,400 for bill to live on. So with net after taxes that rough gives someone $17,000 in fun money. So if you take $5000 a year in money for clothes... That still leaves $12,000 for fun. Also all of my expenses estimates are rounded up to the nearest $50 mark... Like my expenses for townhome fees is really $120. Also insurances for town home and auto are like $120 a month as well. So lets just say I am over by about $200 on my monthly estimates as a "slush fund" type thing for emergency.
Now out of the $12,000 lets invest $2000 of that into an Roth IRA...since I mentioned that above. again using age 20-65 you will have roughly $325,000 sitting in a fund for you along with a "slush fund" of $100,000 if you didn't have to dip too much into it. Then using my example of my expenses have a town home paid off so with depreciation and values... roughly $60,000 in a townhome that is 45 years old. So a total retirement if you liquidated home, IRA, Savings of about $500,000. So then you live to be 80 which is the national average now. You will have $33,000 to live off of. Now you will say that is nothing... but now your lifestyle will still be the same. You won't have health insurance to pay for so that $4800 will be saved. No fees for townhome so that is another $1800 you will save. So you will be living about the exact same lifestyle you are now. If you are happy with that.
Now I know you will say inflation and other bullshit. Which is true yet ...but the rates could climb to 7% or higher on your IRA too. Also think if after you pay off a car you will have a year or two possible with no auto loan. Also insurance rates drop on older auto's. So again those things can combat inflation with my example.
So again come back to reality and realize that $50,000 you can live on.