How can I have a savings of $1M by age 55 if I only start saving now at age 35 and with an annual income of only $56k?

This is what I intend to do for my own retirement. May not be for everyone though, depending on individual risk appetite. 5k USD a year channelled into an offshore brokerage account and sell options on stocks to generate >30%p.a and compound from there. In 20 years, you should have over $9 million in your account. Which you can draw down 4% a year for retirement expenses, or consider shifting into dividend king / aristocrat stocks for passive dividends.

Sorry I'm going to give a geeky answer - please don't downvote me for this!

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To get savings of $1million by age 55 when you are 35 now, I'm making the following assumptions:

1. $1million is future value of money - do note $1million now will bring you different amount of goods compared to $1million 20years later; it's called inflation
2. You manage to find an investment tool that gives stable returns of 10% p.a. compounded annually (in this time and day I'm not sure what gives though)
3. You can afford to set aside about $16,000 every year for the next 20years - this is about 28% of your annual income, or equal to 4 months salary

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Here's the calculations (courtesy of https://www.calculator.net/finance-calculator.html)

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Personally I think items 3 is do-able - need a stretch there. Item 2 would be an issue unless you are willing to take risks. The best instrument I know to generate this is via shares.

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The longer you wait, the more money you'll need to pump in. People forget investments is time sensitive - you need time for money to grow.