Should I be saving for retirement?

[jIM_Ohio]

Thanks for the post kenyant. I want to start saving for retirement. If I keep putting it off then who knows when I will actually start saving for it? But obviously the business is really important and the sooner it gets going the sooner I can make a lot more cash to put towards retirement savings. So I wont be breaking the bank to save for retirement right now.

Andew-

Make sure you understand ROI on retirement compounding...


take yourself with 2 savings paths...


Path 1 is you invest $3600/year for next 10 years
Path 2 is you wait 10 years, then invest $7200/year for 20 years

On both paths you average 8% returns

Look at situation 30 years later...

Path 1 has you invest $40k and end up with 300k. That is a 7X ROI- meaning you have 7 times what you invested initially.

Path 2 has you invest $75,000 (twice as much as previous) and you end up with $196,000. ROI in this case is not even 3X (you do not have 3 times your investment yet).

Meaning you invest twice as much (investing "later") and end up with 100k less


You would need to weigh these issues

1) would the income from owning your own place allow you to triple what you invest? If you wait to invest, investing double does not yield same results and investing now and waiting to open your own place.

2) The risks with owning own place... if restaurant goes under (or fails), what are you left with to "fall back on"?

3) How important is financial security relative to owning (and controlling) your work environment? To me financial security is more important and I tolerate my boss and supervisors... however I know of others which would place control of own day to day operations as being more important than future security.