What Is the Right Age to Start Saving for Retirement?

No matter your age, the simple answer to this question is: right away. Ideally, it's best to start saving in your 20s, because you still have many years for your investments to grow before you retire. But if you're past that window and feel retirement getting closer and closer, it's certainly not too late.

If you haven't begun to save for retirement, you can make up for lost time with the following strategies:

Make It Automatic

Even if you didn't start saving for retirement when you got your first job, you can establish new savings habits now. One of the easiest ways to start saving is to make it automatic.

If you have to manually save some of your salary every time you get paid, it will be painful and probably won’t happen. You'll think of all the things you could spend your money on now, and you won't want to save.

If you automatically save a certain amount from every pay, you won't miss it nearly as much. You'll learn to scale back your expenditures because you will be dealing with less spending money each month. And that leads me to the next strategy.

Rethink Your Budget

Most of us have room in our spending to scale back. We may splurge on eating at restaurants more than necessary, or indulging in a few spontaneous purchases that we don't use very often. If you scrutinise your spending and establish a reasonable budget, you'll probably find that you can save more for retirement than you thought.

It helps to visualise your future goals. What kind of life would you like to have during your retirement years?

Achieving goals takes planning and sacrifice. The planning and sacrifice must happen now in order to get where you want to go. As you rethink your budget, you may be surprised by how much you can realistically save.

Measure Your Progress

Starting to save for retirement may feel like more sacrifice than its worth sometimes. And that's why it's helpful to measure your progress. If you plan to send more money to your Super every month, keep an eye on your Super statements. It can be very satisfying to watch your balance increase at a faster rate than previously.

Measuring your savings progress will help you to stay motivated, and motivation is very important in long-term goals like saving for retirement.

Even if you have neglected your retirement savings in the past, it's not too late to begin making progress today. Your sacrifices today will help you to have a more comfortable retirement, so make your saving automatic, rethink your budget, and don't forget to measure your progress. You'll be glad you did.