[agnes23as]

if you are employee and are in age of 22 or more you need to consider to contribute to your 401 (k) retirement plan, and you should consider funding maximum amounth each year. In 2008 individuals are permitted to sock away up to $15,500 annually on a pretax and or post tax pasic, and for those people that reach age 50 by the end of the year, there is a catch up provision wich allow contributions of another $5000 this will allow total $20,500 for individuals not for employee

I want to share one example that came to my mind
If you are individual who is 40 years old or let say around 40 and if you contributes $15,500 annually to a 401(k) you could accumulate more than $1.2 million in savings by age 65. This assumes an 8% return. Retirement with 1.2 million dollars will satisfy you but you need to remeber that inflation can eat your profit with your money so remeber you need to have additional 5% of funds contribute to your 401 (k) to " match your profit with inflation" otherwise you will not be able to succesful retire