How long does it to make $1 MM in sell-side?

Assume you start at a FO position at a BB fresh out of college, receives industry average pay (proportional to your years of experience), and doesn't get sacked. In other words, you follow a very average, mediocre career path. Assuming the lifestyle is not lavish, how long does it take to save up to $1MM in your account?

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What city does this hypothetical banker live in? Is it a high cost of living city like New York or London? Or is it a lower cost of living city? How about taxes? A banker in Hong Kong is going to pay much less tax vs. the banker in those aforementioned two cities. Is this hypothetical banker married? Does he eventually have children? (Children are expensive, and he would need to move into a bigger house. What about schooling fees for those children?) Even if his lifestyle is "not lavish," you can't reasonably expect someone at the vice president level to still be sharing an apartment with roommates or live in a studio apartment by himself.

Obviously, if you take a very extreme example (a career banker who lives like a monk and never marries and has no interests outside of work and continues to live in a tiny studio apartment for $2000 a month in New York City), than perhaps one could envision this hypothetical banker with $1 million saved up in his early 30s, but in real life that doesn't happen very often.

 
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