When should I start saving/investing for my retirement?
Start as early as possible and you will want to kiss your younger self when you get to retirement age. I know you (and everyone else at that age) thinks that they don't make enough to start saving and leans towards waiting until you get established in your career and start making better money. Don't put it off. Save some money out of each paycheck even if it is only $50.  Trust me, as little as you make now, you probably have more disposable income than you will when you make twice as much. Your lifestyle always seems to keep up with your income and you will likely ALWAYS feel like you don't have money left over to save. The longer you wait, the more you are going to have to stuff away to make up for that lost time you could have been compounding your returns as shown in this table (assuming 9.4 percent average gain annually, which has been the average return on the stock market from 1926-2010).  I also suggest reading this article when explains it in more detail: Who Wants to be a millionaire? Start now.   It's a lot easier to save now than it is to start to save later. Start as soon as you can and make your saving routine.  Start with whatever you feel comfortable with and be consistent.  Increase that amount with raises, income gains, and whenever you want. Does you job offer a retirement plan?  (401k, SIMPLE, etc)  Does your employer offer a match on contributions? Typically an employer will match what you put in, up to a certain percentage (e.g. 3%). So, say you contribute 3% of your paycheck into your retirement plan. If your employer mathes that, you've effectively contributed 6%. You've just doubled your money! The best thing a young professional can do is to contribute to your employer-matched retirement plan, up to the maximum amount they will match. You should do it immediately.  If not, you are leaving money on the table. Here's a good strategy: Open up a Roth IRA at a discount-broker, like TD Ameritrade, invest in no-fee ETF's, tracking an Index, with very low expense ratios (look for around .15%) This way, you won't pay brokers fees whenever you buy shares, and shares are cheap enough to buy casually. This is a good way to start. When you learn more about the market, you can check out individual stocks, exploring different market sectors, etc. But you won't regret starting with a good index fund. Also, it's easy to know how well you did. Just listen on the radio or online for how the Dow or S&P did that day/month/year. Your account will mirror these changes! "My basic rule I tell everyone who will listen is to always live like you're a college student - if you could make it on $20k a year, when you get your first ""real"" job at $40k (eg), put all the rest into savings to start (401(k), IRA, etc). Gradually increase your lifestyle expenses after you hit major savings goals (3+ month emergency fund, house down payment, etc). Any time you get a raise, start by socking it all into your employer's 401(k) or similar. And repeat the above advice."
I have managed two IRA accounts; one I inherited from my wife's 401K and my own's 457B.  I managed actively my wife's 401 at Tradestation which doesn't restrict on Options except level 5 as naked puts and calls. I moved half of my 457B funds to TDAmeritrade, the only broker authorized by my employer, to open a Self Directed account.  However, my 457 plan disallows me from using a Cash-secured Puts, only Covered Calls.  For those who does not know investing, I resent the contention that participants to these IRAs should not be messing around with their IRA funds.  For years, I left my 401k/457B funds with my current fund custodian, Great West Financial.  I checked it's current values once or twice a year. These last years, the market dived in the last 2 quarters of 2015 and another dive early January and February of 2016.  I lost a total of $40K leaving my portfolio with my current custodian choosing all 30 products they offer, 90% of them are ETFs and the rest are bonds. If you don't know investing, better leave it with the pros - right?  But no one can predict the future of the market.  Even the pros are at the mercy of the market. So, I you know how to invest and choose your stocks, I don't think your plan administrator has to limit you on how you manage your funds. For example, if you are not allowed to place a Cash-Secured Puts and you just Buy the stocks or EFT at market or even limit order, you buy the securities at their market value. If you sell a Cash-secured puts against the stocks/ETF you are interested in buying, you will receive a credit in fraction of a dollar in a specific time frame.  In average, your cost to owning a stock/ETF is lesser if you buy it at market or even a limit order.  Most of the participants of the IRA funds rely too much on their portfolio manager because they don't know how to manage. If you try to educate yourself at a minimum, you will have a good understanding of how your IRA funds are tied up to the market.  If you know how to trade in bear market compared to bull market, then you are good at managing your investments.  When I started contributing to my employer's deferred comp account (457B) as a public employee, I have no idea of how my portfolio works.  Year after year as I looked at my investment, I was happy because it continued to grow.  Without scrutinizing how much it grew yearly, and my regular payroll contribution, I am happy even it only grew 2% per year.  And at this age that I am ready to retire at 60, I started taking investment classes and attended pre-retirement seminars.  Then I knew that it was not totally a good decision to leave your retirement funds in the hands of the portfolio manager since they don't really care if it tanked out on some years as long at overall it grew to a meager 1%-4% because they managers are pretty conservative on picking the equities they invest.  You can generalize that maybe 90% of IRA investors don't know about investing and have poor decision making actions which securities/ETF to buy and hold. For those who would like to remain as one, that is fine.  But for those who spent time and money to study and know how to invest, I don't think the plan manager can limit the participants ability to manage their own portfolio especially if the funds have no matching from the employer like mine. All I can say to all who have IRA or any retirement accounts, educate yourself early because if you leave it all to your portfolio managers, you lost a lot.  Don't believe much in what those commercial fund managers also show in their presentation just to move your funds for them to manage.  Be proactive.  If you start learning how to invest now when you are young, JUST DO IT! It's not so much pros and cons as much as it is what are your savings goals? While it's best to start early to save money for retirement, you may have numerous short- to medium-term savings goals (school, down payment, etc). Here's a template you can consider. I would suggest that you open up an RRSP mutual fund or brokerage account and invest a certain amount that you feel free locking up for the next few decades and investing it in some sort of growth product (perhaps look at portfolios using the Couch Potato strategy). Then, also open up a TFSA mutual fund or brokerage account and use it to invest for medium-term goals (i.e. 5-10 years). Invest in products that will allow for some growth but with low chance of losing principle in that time frame. What I wouldn't do is open up a TFSA savings account and use it for day-to-day savings. The tax you save is negligible and you would need to keep track of deposits and withdrawals to ensure that you don't overcontribute for the tax year. Similarly, an RRSP savings account or GIC is far too conservative at your age, IMHO. Think of RRSP and TFSA as investment vehicles rather than accounts per se. Either type allows for you to invest in a vast array of products, including mutual funds, equities, some derivatives, gold, bonds, GICs, etc.  To conclude, my view is to use RRSP to invest for conventional retirement goals, and use the TFSA to invest for medium-term and early retirement goals. Is it worth saving HSA funds until retirement? Yes Are there pros and cons from a tax perspective?  Mostly pros. This has all of the benefits of an IRA, but if you use it for medical expenses then you get to use the money tax free on the other side. Retirement seems to be the time you are most likely to need money for medical expenses. So why wouldn't you want to start saving tax free to cover those expenses? The cons are similar to other tax advantaged retirement accounts. If you withdraw before retirement time for non-medical purposes, you will pay penalties, but if you withdraw at retirement time, you will pay the same taxes you would pay on an IRA. I should note that I put my money where my mouth is and I max out my contribution to my HSA every year. You are only 33, with plenty of time to generate long-term returns. A correction is an opportunity for you to buy more at a lower price. My advice: invest about half in an index fund (S&P 500, for example) and half in a target fund (pick your retirement age), keep saving regularly, and in 30 years you'll be very happy you did. 5-10K a month is fine until all of the money is invested. (You said this is a retirement account, so invest the entire amount. Keep a rainy day fund in your non-retirement savings.) You can fiddle around with how you invest the money and I'm sure you'll get variations on my answer. My above suggestions may not be the absolute best option, but they are certainly not the worst option. Given that you are very risk-averse, keep in mind that you are in this for the long term and should be investing in something where you can safely ignore short-term downswings. If you're worried about investing all at once, you can deploy your starting chunk of cash gradually by investing a bit of it each month, quarter, etc. (dollar-cost averaging).  The financial merits and demerits of this have been debated, but it is unlikely to lose you a lot of money, and if it has the psychological benefit of inducing you to invest, it can be worth it even if it results in slightly less-than-optimal gains. More generally, you are right with what you say at the end of your question: in the long run, when you start won't matter, as long as you continue to invest regularly.  The Boglehead-style index-fund-based theory is basically that, yes, you might save money by investing at certain times, but in practice it's almost impossible to know when those times are, so the better choice is to just keep investing no matter what.  If you do this, you will eventually invest at high and low points, so the ups and downs will be moderated. Also, note that from this perspective, your example of investing in 2007 is incorrect.  It's true that a person who put money in 2007, and then sat back and did nothing, would have barely broken even by now.  But a person who started to invest in 2007, and continued to invest throughout the economic downturn, would in fact reap substantial rewards due to continued investing throughout the post-2007 lows.  (Happily, I speak from experience on this point!) There are lots of sub-parts to your question. Let's takle them one at a time. Should I worry about an IRA at this age? Absolutely! Or at least some form of retirement account. When you are young is the BEST time to start putting money into a retirement account because you have so much time for it to grow. Compounding interest is a magical thing. Even if you can only afford to put a very small amount in the account, do it!  You will have to put a heck of a lot less money into the account over your working career if you start now. Is there a certain amount  you need for the IRA deduction? No. Essentially with a traditional IRA you can just subtract the amount you deposited (up to the contribution limit) from your income when calculating your taxes.  What kind of IRA should I get? I suggest a ROTH IRA, but be warned that with that kind you get the tax breaks when you retire, not now. If you think taxes will be higher in 40 years or so, then the Roth is a clear winner.  Traditional IRA: Tax deduction this year for contribution; investment   plus gains are taxed as income when   you take the money out at retirement. Roth IRA: Investment amount is taxed in the year you put it in; no   taxes on investment amount or gains   when you take it out at retirement. Given the long horizon that you will be investing, the money is likely going to at least double. So the total amount you are taxed on over your lifetime would probably be less with the ROTH even if tax rates remain the same. Is the 401K a better option? If they offer a match (most do) then it is a no-brainer, the employer 401K always comes out on top because they are basically paying you extra to put money into savings.  If there is no match, I suggest a Roth because company 401K plans usually have hidden fees that are much higher than you are going to pay for setting up your own IRA or Roth IRA with a broker. Save enough to build an emergency cushion of 4-6 months total expenses. After that, invest everything you can in areas where you are well researched and have carefully formed your own opinion on the subject. Those who save do not reach financial freedom, those who learn to invest and make their money work for them do. Invest in learning how to invest. Congratulations on deciding to save for retirement. Since you cite Dave Ramsey as the source of your 15% number, what does he have to say about where to invest the money? If you want to have instantaneous penalty-free access to  your retirement money, all you need to do is set up one or more ordinary accounts that you think of  as your retirement money. Just be careful not to  put the money into CDs since Federal law requires a penalty of three months interest if you cash in the CD before its maturity date (penalty!) or put the money into those pesky mutual funds that charge a redemption fee (penalty!) if you take the money out within x months of investing it where x can be anywhere from 3 to 24 or more. In Federal tax law (and in most state tax laws as well) a retirement account has special privileges accorded to it in that the interest, dividends, capital gains, etc earned on the money in your retirement account are not taxed in the year earned (as they would be in a non-retirement account), but the tax is  either deferred till you withdraw money from the  account (Traditional IRAs, 401ks etc) or is waived completely (Roth IRAs, Roth 401ks etc). In return for this special treatment, penalties are imposed (in addition to tax) if you withdraw money from your retirement account before age 59.5 which presumably is on the distant horizon for you. (There are some exceptions (including first-time home buying and extraordinary medical expenses) to this rule that I won't bother going into). But You are not required to invest your retirement   money into such a specially privileged retirement   account. It is perfectly legal to keep your retirement money   in an ordinary savings account if you wish, and pay taxes on the   interest each year.  You can invest your retirement   money into municipal bonds whose interest is free of   Federal tax (and usually free of state tax as well   if the municipality is located in your state of   residence) if you like. You can keep your retirement money in a   sock under your mattress if you like, or buy a   collectible item (e.g. a painting) with it   (this is not permitted in an IRA), etc. In short, if you are concerned about the penalties imposed by retirement accounts on early withdrawals, forgo the benefits of these accounts and put your retirement money elsewhere where there is no penalty for instant access.  If you use a money management program such as Mint or Quicken, all you need to do is name one or more accounts or a portfolio as MyRetirementMoney and voila, it is done. But those accounts/portfolios don't have to be retirement accounts in the sense of tax law; they can be anything at all.