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Imagine how quickly your retirement savings would grow if you had a guaranteed, risk free, high return investment opportunity. You will when you reclaim the high interest cash you might be giving away to the credit card companies. According to IndexCreditCards.com, the average interest on outstanding credit card debt is 14.41%.

Pay off outstanding credit card balances or other high interest consumer loans. Turn the tables on the credit card companies. Keep that 14.41% for yourself. Instead of spending your future you'll be investing in you and your retirement. You might be surprised at how much cash you'll free up for your retirement savings.

Open a retirement savings account. If you don't have the resources to open a retirement savings account now, save your change. Each night when you empty your pockets, put all your pocket change into a container. At the end of the month (do it every month without fail), take your change to the bank and put it into a passbook savings account. You won't have a lot of money to deposit and you won't collect much interest, but you'll have a good start. Keep it up and one day you'll have enough to open a "real" retirement savings plan.

Are you investing with your employer's retirement savings plan? Contributions come out of your paycheck and you probably won't even miss the money after the first couple of checks.

Don't leave money on the table. A lot of employers will match your contributions. For every ten dollars you save, you'll end up with fifteen. Because of the tax savings, your paycheck won't even go down the full ten dollars. That's a hard deal to beat.

If your employer doesn't offer a retirement savings plan or if you're not eligible, you can set up your own IRA plan at surprisingly low cost. Go direct with one of the established mutual funds and you won't have any fees to pay. It's true that you need $500 to $1000 to open most IRA accounts, but if you're willing to commit to a regular, automatic monthly investment plan, most funds will get you started with a $50 minimum. Open your account with $50 and $50 will be deducted automatically from your bank account each month. Simple, easy and it doesn't take much cash.

Small, regular savings mount up over time. Just fifteen dollars a week, compounded annually at eleven percent will have grown to over a half million dollars after forty years!

The historic yield of the U.S. stock market has been more than 11 percent a year. Don't wait. Pay off your consumer debt first then put as much as you can into your savings. Even a few dollars each week can have a big impact on your retirement when you put time and the magic of compound interest to work for you.

Learn more about this author, John McDevitt.
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