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Reality Check - How many years do you have left until you're 65?

Whether retirement is just around the corner or have many more years to go, setting yourself up for retirement is key and must start now. Do the math. If you want $10,000 and you*re investing at 5 percent, you need $3,765. If you invest at 10 percent, you'll need $1,400. It's great if you have a savings account (you*re ahead of most folks), but if that's the highest form of investing you*re doing*we have a lot of work to do.

It's not Magic*Compounded Interest

In my 30s, I started saving $50 each month. As I earned more, I saved more. If you invest in a Roth/IRA, your money grows tax-free.

Example: If you invest $1 for 40 years at*

1 percent = $1.49

10 percent = $45.26

20 percent = $1,470

Make your money work for you.

Get a plan down for saving and stick to it. I was trained in trading commodities. To do so, you have to eliminate/minimize your emotion. You go in with a plan and stick with the plan, meaning you invest only under certain circumstances and if it goes down more than a certain amount, you take your loss and drop out. If your trading system loses 80 percent of the time, is this a good system? Perhaps. If you only lose $0.01 (when you lose), and you make $0.05 when you win*this is a good trading system because the winnings outweigh the losses. You can make 20 percent on some investments that are 100 percent secured (by the United States government, such as tax deeds).