by Edwin Ivanauskas | Tags: Personal Finance, Investing, Retirement

Most people start working when they are 16 years old but when they are only 16 they do not think about their retirement. It is uncommon for someone to begin planning or saving for retirement at an early age. Regardless, retirement planning is very important and it is never too early to begin planning and saving money for retirement.

Saving money for retirement

For people that do not make preparations for their retirement during their working years, they will find they will not be able to make it without a job. They may need to get another job even though they are retired just to make ends meet.

There are three common sources of retirement income:

• Social security,
• Employer-sponsored retirement plans,
• Personal savings and investments.

It is very important to save money while you are working in order to secure some money for your retirement. Your social security and employer-sponsored retirement plan will only pay so much; you may need more money than what those can provide. The earlier you start your retirement planning the better off you will be when your last day of work rolls around.

Find out about your social security benefits

Social security pays the average person about forty percent of their preretirement earnings; based on the person's standard of living, this may not be enough. For more information on your social security benefits you can call the Social Security Administration at 1-800-772-1213.

Find out about your employer-sponsored plans or profit sharing plan

If your employer does offer some sort of retirement plan find out what your benefit are. Most employers will give you an individual statement if you ask for one so that you can see exactly what you will be getting upon retirement. If you are changing jobs, find out what will happens to your pension and check previous jobs to see if you have any benefits from that.

Tips for retirement planning

Sign up for 401k, the more you contribute the better; automatic deductions make it easier to contribute because it will be taken out of your paycheck before you even see it.

Open up a retirement account for yourself and put a certain percentage of your earnings in it each time you get paid. The money will earn interest over time and you will have something to fall back on when retirement comes.

Set some goals and stick to them, decide how much you will be putting into your savings account each month, week, year, etc. and do it each time. Make sure you do not touch your savings at all because you may lose some tax benefits and you will be taking money away from yourself when retirement comes. Retirement planning is a important step to make sure you have steady income upon retiring

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