You may think you are young and you may be – you may have plenty of time before you even think you need to be concerned about awful words like retirement or pension. However you would be very surprised because many things can happen in your life that may derail your perfect plans. You should start as early as possible to be concerned about these issues due to that fact. Never have a cavalier attitude about anything as you may regret it.

For a sickening example, let’s consider the last recession. We are talking about people who started working in their 20’s and started accruing pension and various retirement investments. They may have also acquired real estate as part of this portfolio. They had a good plan and they were faithful to themselves in contributing to a good result. Set for life, right?

It doesn’t hurt to note here that these people are in the minority. Most people are not nearly as prepared for one reason or another so it may be even worse for them. It just may add a little drama to the already very sad tale. So by the 2008 recession these folks are getting to be around their 60s or close to it and nearing what would have been projected as ‘retirement’ age in a less cruel world.

We won’t accuse anyone or delve into the various causes of the recession – let it just suffice to say it wasn’t caused by the people in our story. They are the victims. Somehow suddenly about half their retirement savings are gone,if not entirely. So now rather than planning on their retirement and looking forward to some sort of ‘reward’ for working all their lives, they are looking for part-time work for seniors.

At this point in their lives it is rather late to start over and/or to ever dream of any sort of meaningful recovery. It’s criminal and it is just so very tragic. The worst part is there is no retribution except in the most extreme cases of outright fraud. The point here is that you should start young to save money. Don’t put it all in your employment benefits accounts, although it would be good to also contribute to those since they usually match by double. Keep an account separate from everything else.

If you have any spare time try to earn extra money; (and you know all that web surfing and social networking is fun and all but really does nothing for our bottom line) – unless we can somehow work it into helping us to promote an online business. Since it is spare time and spare change at this point we should just forget about any income from it. Just let it accrue and keep generating by being engaged as much as possible to make it work on the side. You will be surprised ‘at the end of the day’ where you have this nice little chunk of money to help you get by.