We all know that Social Security won’t be able to hold us up when we’re ready to kick back with retirement. And unless you bought Apple stock a year ago, you’re in need of a good way to grow your retirement funds. The key is time. The sooner you start saving, the greater your wealth will be at age 65 because of compound interest.

What does this concept mean? Let’s imagine you (age 25) and your dad (age 50) want to establish $200,000 for retirement. You’re both starting today at 5% interest.

To have $200,000 by age 65, every year, you need to invest $1,655.63; your dad needs to invest $9,268.46. Yikes! In the end, you’ll only have to put a total of $66,255.29 into the account. Accruing interest generates the remaining cash. Unfortunately, because your dad waited so long to begin investing, he’ll have to fork out $139,026.86’more than twice as much as you.

The greatest success comes from:

• 1. The earliest planning. Instead of buying a new plasma TV, hang onto the TV you already have and invest the money
• 2. The highest interest rate obtainable. The difference between 5% and 5.1% from age 25 to 65 is $39.97 that you don’t have to invest to gain the same end goals. At 10%, you’d get to invest $1,200 less every year. You could get that plasma TV after all.