The Younger, the Better
If you're in your twenties or thirties, you may feel as if you have all the time in the world to invest for retirement. Don't find out the hard way that you can't start in your forties and expect to catch up to those who started in their twenties. The younger you are when you start, the less you'll need to invest, thanks to the power of compounding and the length of time until retirement.
It's difficult to think ahead to your retirement when you're young. There are so many things you want to do and so little money at your disposal. Yet investing a relatively small amount of money in your twenties can save you from having to invest much more when you're in your forties and fifties in order to be able to live comfortably in retirement.
You can't rely on social security as your sole source of retirement income, but fortunately there are a growing number of alternatives. Employers sponsor some of them; others are the do-it-yourself variety. Most employer-sponsored plans fall into one of three categories: defined benefit, defined contribution, and profit sharing.
