At 26 years of age, you are fairly young to be thinking of retirement. If you become pre-occupied with that retirement thing, you may have a good life when you retire but you surely would lose your youth because how can you enjoy the present when all you think is the future? My advice is for you to live your life, enjoy what you have and think of the retirement when you reach 40. Life is to be lived and not to be spent on plans for the future. Take me case, I am past 50 but still enjoying my life. I travel, I spend, but I also think of the future.. .a little bit.
Thinking about the future and enjoying life are not things that rule each other out. The power of compound interest is amazing, so I do recommend that everyone starts young. Even 5% of their paycheck... in decades that will lead to a considerable amount. And no, it won't kill your ability to have fun if you spend 5% less, I'm sure the large majority of us spend at least 5% on unnecessary stuff.
Just start investing what you can now into a retirement account. The younger you start, the better shape you will be in when you get older. I started my retirement account at the age of 24 and only contributed $10 a paycheck because that was all I could reasonably afford to do at the time. I did not miss the money. As you get more comfortable you can increase what you set aside each paycheck. I am lucky to work for a company that allows me to adjust my retirement savings at any time.
Just out of curiosity, if you don't mind sharing, how old are you and how much is that retirement account worth today?
As FrankieD posted earlier, let compound interest work for you. I am 25 years old, living in Jamaica, and I started out with little savings. I saved the coins I picked up on the street while I was volunteering at a horse stable at a local horse racing track. Now I have a job earning Jamaican equivalent of US$503 per month. I am saving little less than half my pay per month because I don't want to end up where I am coming from financially, ever again. I used a portion of the money I picked up to open a savings account back then. After a few jobs as a dog trainer and repair technician, and presently working in my local ministry, I now have a retirement, life insurance and an investment portfolio. The trick is to start small stay consistent and determined. If i can do it you can too.
I would not say that you bad for not having a retirement fund at your age. I am 27 years old myself and have a hard time finding a job where I live and have no car nor medical and dental insurance. I too would like to save up for retirement like in a Roth IRA but I do not have any income coming in so I cannot save for that.
I agree that it is never too late and at 26 you are still quite young but the sooner you can start putting money a way the better it will be. You should have a goal to start doing so by the time you are 30. For the next couple of years work on getting your life in order and securing a good job. Like somebody else suggested maybe take a course at the local community college. Do whatever it takes to get yourself in a place in your life where you can start investing in your future. Trust me the years go by way too fast!
