I was a Johnny Come Lately to investing for retirement. I became especially interested in 2008/09 when the market crashed and I overheard a couple of the older associates at work talking about how their 401K's had dropped by 50%. As a military retiree, I didn't even know what was a 401k. I looked into it and found out my company had been contributing 4% of my weekly salary into my own 401k for the past 6 years and I had a total of $64K in there. I was elated, and began to order investing books off Amazon to educate myself. The self education has paid off, because it gave me a knowledge base from which to consider the advice of investors much more experienced than me. I lost many years of investing potential during my 26 years in the military, because we always managed to live above our means, which meant living in credit card and school debt, with no money left over to invest. Nevertheless, at age 49 I was hired on by an engineering and construction company in their pipeline division in 2002. I began to make much more money and eventually figured things out by the time I retired in 2018. I have been blessed beyond measure. So, the key is living below your means, if you are income limited, and invest the rest. I think Dave Ramsey explains this best in his 7 Baby Steps. Dave also recommends making more money, even if that means getting a second job delivering pizza.
