Hello,

If you ever talked to a young person about retirement, the answer is always not very encouraging, considering that this is the best time to start due to less financial commitment on the individual. Many are the times a person wished that they just heeded the call to put aside money for retirement, but they were to ignorant of time value of money, which can grow the small monthly savings to become a substantial amount during retirement. Another reason for staring early is that during this time many people have minimal expenses, for example, mortgage, starting a family, and this becomes rather difficult to save a substantial amount of money later on in life. There are a number of benefits that arises to an individual who starts saving early for their retirement as illustrated in the following article by Cecilia Yap.

Early retirement planning for young people? The Best strategy is to start saving now. And as your pile of money grows, strategize the best way to invest it, to max out the returns……,

At a young age, it may seem to you that retirement is so far away, but it’s never too early to start saving for your retirement when it comes to money matter. As you’re young, time is on your side. Don’t wait until you’re 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 to start saving. You may still not get the point about starting an early retirement plan.

Here, let’s look at one example.

Say, you put $1,000 into savings every year from age 20 to age 30, contributing a total of $11,000. You stop, but you don’t spend it; you leave the money there. Your friend starts to save $1,000 at age 30 until she’s 64, contributing a total of $35,000. Guess what? Your money will be more than your friend’s at age 65, even though you put in a lot less. Why? Because you started earlier and compound interest has longer time to make your money grow.

So now you see why it’s important for you to start saving from day one (after clinching a full-time job) as your money will have many, many years to grow into a handsome pile. By starting early, you also get to save a lot less later on. How do you go about saving for your retirement then?

Here are 2 ways to get you started:

Take advantage of your employer’s retirement savings plan

Your Workplace savings plan is the easiest way to start your savings wheel rolling. If your employer offers a 401k or similar retirement savings plan, grab it; take the initiative to sign up for it. Decide how much you want to contribute from your monthly paycheck and where you want to invest the money. There’s the so-called “free money” involved in a 401k. This is due to your employer’s matching with your contributions. Your employer may contribute to your 401k account once you begin to put money in it. If say, your employer matches 50 cents for each dollar you contribute, this is an immediate 50% return. There is no other
investment that’ll give you that kind of guaranteed return. So grab it.

Find out how much your employer match is and how much you need to contribute to get all of it. Or it could be that your employer offer you a traditional, old-fashioned defined benefit pension plan. In this type of plan, your employer contributes the money, invests it and pays a benefit to you upon your retirement, based on your pay and the number of years you worked in the company.

Open an Individual Retirement Account (IRA)

Whether or not your employer has a retirement savings plan, you can start saving in an IRA. An IRA is a personal account that you set up with a bank or a mutual fund company. You can direct your savings to the account by either sending a check to the bank or have a constant amount deducted regularly from your checking or savings account, or from your paycheck.