Recently I was talking to a friend about our 401Ks. My friend told me that she had not yet started contributing to her retirement account (even though her company matches!). Her rational is that she is now at the lowest salary she will ever be making so she will worry about it when she makes more money.
Listen Up Gen Y! DON’T Ignore Your 401K!
Are you contributing to your retirement?
Read this from MSN Money:
“Less than a third of workers 25 and under are contributing to their employer sponsored retirement plans. These accounts are much more important to young workers than to older Americans. That’s because the majority of younger workers aren’t covered by an old fashion guaranteed pension. Moreover, every dollar that 20-somethings save will be more valuable over the course of their lives than the same dollar will be for older workers. That is because young workers have more time to invest their savings and then let that money grow. Sadly, there seems to be little urgency among young Americans to remedy this situation. For instance, a paltry 19% of young workers say they plan to fund a traditional or Roth IRA this year. In fact, the majority of 18- to 24-year-olds don’t even know whether they qualify to fund various types of IRAs, according to CCH.”
You have been warned! Time is your biggest advantage right now. Starting now is the absolute best thing you can do! If you don’t start early you’ll miss out on a head start that will be incredibly difficult to make up later on.
Here is your challenge: TODAY! Research how you can start contributing to your 401K. You don’t have to be a financial whiz or hire a financial planner. But whatever you do, don’t ignore it. You will thank me someday!
Photo by teenage crime
Readers, are you planning for your retirement?
