Again, I'll swap careers with them. There are always ways to save money. My mom was a divorced secretary raising 4 kids. She was a tightwad who saved every chance she could; she retired a millionaire. I was saving most of my salary as an E-1 in the military back in 1980.
It's not your income level that dictates your ability to retire, it's the amount of savings that you do during your work years. If you choose to live at a standard of living where you don't save much money for retirement, it is you who are to blame, not your busted career.

Here's a better question, not aimed at you. Have many pilots learned from the financial follies of those older pilots and started to set aside a large chunk of their salaries for a rainy day? I'd say no if there are pilots who complain that they can't live on minimum guarantee.