I’m 26 years old with $60k in my retirement account – one of my greatest accomplishments to date. Now I don’t say that to brag, but I do like sharing my story because I know that if I can do it, then you can too. I started working at a big corporation when I was 19 years old and I think my starting pay was $11.11 an hour. My paychecks weren’t anything crazy and definitely not enough to afford tons of luxuries, but I was smart with my money, and from a very early age I started putting money away into a 401k. I can’t remember what percentage I started putting away, but it was definitely significant. Maybe like 6-7%. Sure, that meant I had less money to play with every two weeks, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make. Every year I’d typically receive a merit increase and my pay would increase a little bit. With each pay increase I’d also raise the percentage of my pay that I was putting towards retirement, and at 25 I reached a point where I was putting about $800 a month into retirement. $800 a month is a lot of money. If I hadn’t been saving it, man, the things I could have bought with $800. But you know what? I didn’t miss that $800 because I got used to doing without it. I never counted on that money to pay my bills because it always went straight to my 401k. I lived below my means, hid this extra money from myself, and today, I definitely feel that it’s been worth it. How about you guys? Do you have a 401k set up? Remember, compound interest is a beautiful thing, and the earlier you get started, the better!
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