Back in my teaching days when we learned spread sheets I used to have the students make one showing the results of saving $2000 a year in an IRA. First I would have them guess how much money they would have by the time they reached 60. Most did some simple multiplication and came up with an answer near $80,000. A few knew about interest.
We built the spreadsheet including yearly earnings of 8%. Needless to say they were shocked at how much money they would end up with.
I then asked them to look at each increase and asked what did the SS tell them. A few soon realized that it's the last doubling that really piled on the wealth.
I remember one of the first calculations I ever did, that got me turned on to investing. In August of 1991, my Granddad gave me an issue of some money magazine that he had. I remember reading it, and seeing that a mutual fund, Twentieth Century Ultra, had returned 20% in the past year. Back then, I think you only needed $1,000 to open a mutual fund with them, unless you did automatic monthly investing.
Well, I did the math on a calculator, and discovered that if it could return 20% per year, every year, that in 39 years, that $1,000 would break $1 Million!
Now obviously, that fund is not going to consistently return 20% every single year, but it opened my eyes to the idea of compounding. Plus, the fact that $1000 isn't all that much money to start with, so you could always add more. Anyway, it showed me that $1M is indeed an attainable goal.
And, I also understood that when you adjust for inflation, that $1M isn't going to be worth as much. Heck, even though 1991 doesn't seem *that* long ago to me, just accounting for inflation, $1M back then would be like ~$1.7M today. But, I figured, just add more money if you can.
I tried explaining this concept to a friend of mine, as I thought it was truly amazing that $1K could, theoretically, turn into $1M in just 39 years. But, he just couldn't grasp the idea, and wanted to whine about it taking so long. Instant gratification, I guess.