When did you start saving for Retirement

[corn18]

How much did your early savings grow?
Well, hindsight is 20/20.

It seems fashionable to retire early these days. But retirement life isn't all that carefree; I'm right now very tired from the several vacations we took in during the last few weeks. I want a rest, but wife wants to go visit somewhere that's 4.5hr away (we've booked hotels already).

Since beginning of July, we've been to Las Vegas, a cruise from LA, an RV trip to Santa Barbara, and now a car journey to Fort Braggs next week. These are all DRIVING vacations, and I'm the one who end up driving (and I don't like driving).

Seriously, working was way easier than this. I look forward to the start of school for my kid; then we'd be more trapped. Last year, I got really sick (physically and needed medical treatments) from all the traveling (IL, TX, LA, OR, HI all between July and August). This year, I'm sleeping/resting as much as possible between travelings.

This is interesting to me. Not working and running around the world is interesting to me, but would not fulfill me. I need to make a difference.

I want to reach financial independence early so I can retire if I want to. But my retirement plans are to take on a different career, not stop working. But the new career will be on my terms with lots of time for vacation or not working. And by being FI, I can change my mind at any time and actually retire in the traditional sense.

BTW, my next career will be rescuing animals. Not sure what that exactly looks like yet, but I am working that out now. Actively. I plan to be FI with the option to retire in 7 years (I'll be 57).

Tom

[sv2007]

This is interesting to me. Not working and running around the world is interesting to me, but would not fulfill me. I need to make a difference.

I want to reach financial independence early so I can retire if I want to. But my retirement plans are to take on a different career, not stop working. But the new career will be on my terms with lots of time for vacation or not working. And by being FI, I can change my mind at any time and actually retire in the traditional sense.

BTW, my next career will be rescuing animals. Not sure what that exactly looks like yet, but I am working that out now. Actively. I plan to be FI with the option to retire in 7 years (I'll be 57).

Tom

When I was younger (due to experience), I had wanted to go into medicine when I retire to contribute more to society. Then (via experience again) I thought that I should be a lawyer instead as they can contribute to people's happiness way more. Well, those ideas are than 15 years old. Now, I'm more selfish or maybe just changed.

I still work (just enough earned income to max out our IRAs); and we are still waiting for the chance to convert our tIRA into Roth; but mostly the big difference was volunteering at my son's schools (he was kinder and going to 1st grade). I don't think I'll be volunteering 1st grade as he's adjusting very well. I also devoted time to teach him a few things: piano, swimming, chess since Jan. I'm not sure if I'd have the dedication to do that if I'm working fulltime.

What I really want to do right now (actually I was planning for it when I retired) was to do some local motorcycle racing. Wife says I can't ride until our son is 18; I'm not sure if I want to wait that long. Besides, track riding is pretty safe (I'm good at destroying my bikes and I don't think I've ever suffered even a major scratch riding on the track). One of these days, I think I'm just going to get a bike and surprise my wife : )

[clatoden99]

I started doing a full 401K contribution with my first job out of college and would encourage everyone to do the same, as long as you can afford it financially.

Aside from sumemr jobs, I had never had income previously. I never felt richer than my first paycheck from a full-time job that paid me ~$40K annually. 15 years later, my 401K contributions have compounded to be very meaningful.

If you have loans or other commitments, then definitely those need to be a priority. But I would encourage anyone to compromise a bit on lifestyle to make 401K contributions.

[DaveInPgh]

I'm right now very tired from the several vacations we took in during the last few weeks.

[bigdaddybus]

How old were you when you started saving for retirement? How much did you save % I mean. Did you start at 1%? 5%? Have you increased it or just stayed the same?

I was 21 right out of college into a Roth IRA $2k/year. No 401k at that time. DH had neither but then once he got a job we started saving both into Roth IRA and maxed out his 401k back in 2006, 2005 we saved a little but he started working in November 2005 so not much time.

We just invested and forgot about. We saved other money but that's when started saving for retirement. Now in our 30s we'll just continue. I wish we had saved more earlier and had more options.

- at age 24 my wife and I opened roth IRAs that we irregularly contribute to.
- at age 25 and 26 we both joined a company with 401Ks and pensions.
- we started with 5% 401K contributions and fairly quickly increased our to 15%. I reduced contributions to 12% this year.
- pensions are held by an employee association rather than the company I work for. They have a long history if keeping the pension fund 100% funded.

My spouse and I feel comfortable with our retirement outlook as we know our current budget and when comparing that to retirement calculators we are in good shape.

What I am thinking about a lot lately is "How much is enough"
from age 58-62 our pension increases 9% per year
from age 62-65 our pension increases 4.3% per year

[cornfieldj]

I didn't start saving seriously till I was in my early 50s, when I started writing about retirement for this small financial services company. I think I started at 6% and quickly moved up to 10% and then 12% - because I just wanted to put as much money aside as possible.

I have other savings and stocks but when I was in my 20s very few people that age ever thought about saving for retirement. I definitely regret not paying more attention to 401(k)s from when I was in my 30s (only had one job with a 401(k) for about a year) and another job, where the 401(k) got rolled over into a very high-fee IRA (it was a very small amount).

[My English Castle]

sporadically saving

At 24, my job offered us profit sharing in an ESOP or a $350 payment. I started with that and then IRAs after that. In some lean years after my first marriage ended and then when I got remarried and our daughter was born I didn't contribute to the max. But I keep plugging away.

[disneysteve]

I'm right now very tired from the several vacations we took in during the last few weeks.

Seriously, working was way easier than this.

Travel can absolutely be very exhausting. How many times have you heard someone say they need a vacation from their vacation. Part of that is because people who lead pretty sedentary lives go on vacation and run themselves ragged from sun up to midnight. We just returned from Disney World yesterday. At Disney, it is not at all unusual to walk 10 miles/day. We don't do that level of activity at home. So of course we're tired.

You need to spread out those vacations. Doing it all back to back is too much for sure.

This is interesting to me. Not working and running around the world is interesting to me, but would not fulfill me. I need to make a difference.

I want to reach financial independence early so I can retire if I want to.

Exactly. This is part of why I've started doing urgent care work in addition to my office practice. Urgent care lends itself quite easily to working on a "whenever I feel like it" basis. Just today, I worked 1pm-5pm. We got home from vacation yesterday. I knew I'd want to sleep in today but still wanted to accomplish something so I scheduled that mid-day shift. It worked out perfectly. In retirement, that sort of flexibility would be great. If we want to go away, no work. If we'll be around, I can schedule at my convenience.

[cornfieldj]

I started doing a full 401K contribution with my first job out of college and would encourage everyone to do the same, as long as you can afford it financially.

Aside from sumemr jobs, I had never had income previously. I never felt richer than my first paycheck from a full-time job that paid me ~$40K annually. 15 years later, my 401K contributions have compounded to be very meaningful.

If you have loans or other commitments, then definitely those need to be a priority. But I would encourage anyone to compromise a bit on lifestyle to make 401K contributions.

One positive thing about the current retirement landscape is that more companies are automatically enrolling their employees. Of course they can opt out if they want to but most people, when they get the statements and see the amount growing, are really glad to be in the plan.

My cousin who is 22 and just started working was kind of agonizing about whether to start participating and I recommended she def do it - Also told her she could dial down the contribution if it seemed like the contribution was not affordable.

[parasush]

Saving for Retirement

Good question!!

The answer is simple: as soon as you can. Ideally, you'd start saving in your 20s, when you first leave school and begin earning paychecks. That's because the sooner you begin saving, the more time your money has to grow.

[cypher1]

About 7 years ago or at age 28 I started my 401K with putting 5% and now 10%. In the last two years I've started with Roth IRA, finally maxing the contribution this year or 16% total of my gross pay.

On another note, I just realized I hit my first 100K between both contributions, not including my EF account. That was a goal I hoping to get by the end of this year or by age 36.

[disneysteve]

One positive thing about the current retirement landscape is that more companies are automatically enrolling their employees.

There is a downside to this. I've read that the problem with this is that the auto-enrollment is at a low contribution rate and many employees never adjust it so they're only saving 2 or 3% of income which isn't nearly enough.

[GoodSteward]

I didn't start when I wanted thanks to investing into my credit card companies instead. I got out of that and then I finally got a real job that paid good and offered a 401k (last one did neither). I started 4 years ago and I'm putting in 5% currently (the match) and I have recently started a Roth IRA. Slowly but surely I'll get there.

Oh, and I'm 31 soon to be 32. I'm old!!!

[cornfieldj]

Totally true. There's been some industry talk of turning up the auto enrollment to 6% - almost no one ever complains about the money that's taken from their paychecks. And some plans do have an auto increase feature, so the contribution goes up by 1% or 2% each year.

Unfortunately, as people have been forced to be more self-reliant for retirement, they are also forced to be more proactive and see what's going on with their plan. I agree 2% or 3% is far too low. But better than nothing saved at all, right?

[cornfieldj]

There is a downside to this. I've read that the problem with this is that the auto-enrollment is at a low contribution rate and many employees never adjust it so they're only saving 2 or 3% of income which isn't nearly enough.

@DisneySteve - Totally true. There's been some industry talk of turning up the auto enrollment to 6% - almost no one ever complains about the money that's taken from their paychecks. And some plans do have an auto increase feature, so the contribution goes up by 1% or 2% each year.

Unfortunately, as people have been forced to be more self-reliant for retirement, they are also forced to be more proactive and see what's going on with their plan. I agree 2% or 3% is far too low. But better than nothing saved at all, right?