At What Age Should You Plan For Retirement?

I was listening to WBAP the other day with my father (I hate talk radio) and it said the younger you are the better it is to start worrying about healthcare policies and retirment. What are your'e views? What is your advice? What do you have to say? What shold I be aware of?

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Take finance courses in school and learn the material to help you make informed decisions when you begin saving for retirement. Obviously the younger you begin saving in a Roth IRA or whatever, the richer you'll be when you retire or the younger you can retire. It's not very practical in most cases to really start saving that nest egg, though, until you've gotten that career job that you went to college for, but sometimes that doesn't matter either, as long as you've got decent income beyond your expenses, you should stash 10 - 20% for that day when you no longer want to work. Real assets like silver, gold, real estate, guns, ammo are all good things that won't lose their value over time like a car or clothes or computers will. Try and hold on to as much value as you can from an early age by investing in things that hold and increase in value with time and you'll be saving for your retirement. Invest in a good safe that'll bolt to a concrete wall and floor to hide your treasure too.

The sooner you plan for the future the better it will be. If you start saving money now for retirement it will be easier and sooner. If you wait it will be harder and take longer to retire. I read a book called The Automatic Millionair. I don't have the link to it, but it is a great read on how to set it up so you will automatically retire when you want basically. It's not like retiring in the next week, but it teaches you how to easily save money to where it doesn't even affect your everyday life, but when your, say 50, you'll have like 3 million dollars in your bank. It's a very good read if you're looking for a good retirement plan.

Basically, the idea is to save a lot while you are young and vital. When you reach middle of your career you might not be able to compete with fresh, young talents. So save while you can and when you can, that can benefit your future.

I have heavily invested in 401(k) option through my work. In just few short years I have tripled my contribution. And since I am young I do not have many doctor visits or prescription needs. But imagine when I have an illness that would require for me to constantly attend, it would deplete my savings fast. For this unimaginable event, I save for the future while I am healthy and able.

Just to state an example, let's say you are saving $10,000 dollars a year at the interest of modest 3%

Year 1: $10,300.00
Year 2: $20,909.00 (($10,300 + $10,000) x 3% interest)
Year 3: $31,836.27
Year 4: $43,091.36 ...

Now imagine you've been doing this for 20 or 30 years. It can add up very quickly. Of course, we didn't count income tax for the interest and other bank fees... but you get the idea.

As far as Health care issues, I would not worry about that. Although health coverage may change depend on the government, you can always shop around for better health care coverage plans. After all, it's your money that they want. So my idea is that if I have enough money to afford my own private health care coverage (not subsidized) I don't have to worry about politicians screwing up my health care plan. When it comes to money I do not trust anyone or anything that I do not have 100% control. United States' Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare should not be the choice for my future. I am sure there are people who might need a little assistance from the government but I will not be the one. I mean, I spent all those years learning and studying to get a great career and have nothing to show at the end for my retirement is just plain craziness

I don't think that it's ever too early to at least start thinking about retirement. What steps you take depend on your income (if any), budget, future plans, et cetera.

Right now I don't have a retirement plan in progress. I barely have savings. But when I finish college and actually work full-time, I'm going to go ahead and start planning for retirement. No matter what career I ultimately end up with, I want the option of being able to retire before I'm too old and decrepit to do the things that I really want to do (traveling, for example). Besides: if some unforeseen thing happens, like a permanent disability, I like the idea of not having to rely entirely on Social Security to help me survive.

In our country and I think it is the same with the rest of the modern world, there is a big problem, because people retire older and older. So I'm thinking like this: "I have to live now, I will probably retire when I'll be 70 years old and I think I will be able to survive with the pension I'll have at that point so why would I save any money?!". Another reason is also, that I try to live the present moment and not worry too much about the past or the future, so saving a lot of money for future times is quite foolish in my opinion.

I am starting to understand why people about 200 years ago had 10 children - it was their way of surviving the old age...

It is hard to make money, harder to save money but it is hardest to grow money nowadays. Saving money in the right way is the start to discipline you about money and the start to know how to invest. Saving the right way means that check first the interest rate that the institution will give you. Why save for the lower interest while there are establishment that can give higher rate. Save now for the retirement while our body still capable to work. We will never know when the accidents going to happen or our health still be in top form. We don’t want our self to be a liability someday.