You can retire at any age you want lol. Most people didn't live in their means nor did they save for retirement starting at 18/22. This was possible 30 years ago. These days? Not so much.

It doesn't mean you can't leverage it way better than most though. Starting a Roth IRA saves more money than even paying off your house loan in half the time. That's saving an extra $70,000 for most. Putting into retirement early triples that lol.

Compound interest via stock/bonds is a bullshit money generating hack made up by rich people to get richer though. The poors literally get their dregs from riding on their coattails then acting like they invested well.