Getting Serious - Retirement

I'm 28... retirement is a far of dream of mine.  I am looking forward to the days where I can go on vacation with my husband to Florida and drink pina coladas til the cows come home.  I am excited about being able to live off of the income that I've collected and saved throughout my years as a working individual. 

I do work hard to ensure the the finances of myself and my husband are going to be in order for the future.  For the past 3 years my husband and I have saved the max that we can put away in a ROTH IRA.  I have also been lucky because my last job gave us a bonus at the end of the year which amounted to 15% of our total salary that we could put in a SEP IRA.  I've also saved a great deal of money at my very first job in a 401K, that money is now in a Rollover IRA.

I know a lot about savings, and I know a lot about finances and what scares me is knowing that I have many people close to me who haven't been able to afford saving for retirement just yet, or don't realize the impact of saving early on.  Believe me, future YOU will thank present YOU for it :)

Recently, I was able to sit in on an honors finance class. I had heard all of the information before but this time I soaked it up like a sponge. My favorite example is the value of compound interest and how time is a huge factor in actually getting to your retirement goals.  The short explanation is that when you're saving earlier, time is on your side.  Time=interest, interest compounds on itself... so the earlier your start saving and investing your money, the more likely you are to be better off in retirement. 

I know this is kind of a heavy subject for a blog that was recently inundated with zombie posts and even a snooki one... but it's serious.  I'm guessing that most of the people that read this blog are my friends or family who are young and can get a lot of impact from this.

I just think that even if you're in debt or living paycheck to paycheck there are ways to start saving for retirement.  Pay yourself first.  If you need help, I'd love to show you how to get started by opening up a retirement account, participating in a company 401k, or finding the right investments for you!

Disclaimer, I'm not a financial planner, but I do know people that are.  I can even just point you in the right direction in finding someone to talk to.  Make appointments with local brokers to talk to them about your finances.  Check out fidelity.com, vangaard.com, ml.com or talk to parents/co-workers/friends about how they save and do it too.  Even if you start just putting away $20/month.