Do you guys have a retirement plan? Are you using your company's 401K option? Setting money aside every month?

I, sadly, do not. All of my savings have gone towards
a) graduate school
b) travel

I'm slightly embarrassed that I don't have a retirement account and I'd like to start one once I'm more 'settled.'

What about you?

I'm not even sure I know what a 401K is. However, I am enrolled with some sort of retirement savings program through my employer, and they match the amount I put in; I think that's a 401K?

I, too, am embarrassed about how little I know about personal finance. But I have good news: one of my dearest friends is in a PhD program in finance at Stanford (this, after graduating in 3 years from MIT for undergrad, and he's 25!!), and I asked him some advice, recently. He said for me it doesn't make that much sense to start saving for retirement at 24 years old, and that my money would be better applied right now towards education or to getting a career that I want (starting my own business, etc).

He also emailed me some advice about how to invest, should I choose to. I know nothing about investing and the explanations he wrote were simple to understand. I would be happy to forward along that information to anyone who is interested!

I don't know anything about personal finances, except that it's mandatory in Aus for employers to put aside 9% of your income to superannuation for when you retire. Also I think the government has a dollar for dollar scheme but I haven't taken advantage of it yet!

I put all of my savings toward travel as well. I'd really like to start putting some money away but I probably won't until I get a grownup job but for now I prefer living cheaply in faraway places. I have made a point to at least learn as much as I can about personal finance, though, and to any savvy lady who is doing the same I would recommend they read On My Own Two Feet. It's short, easy to read, intelligent, and the advice is especially targeted toward younger women.

@satelliteeyes

Thanks for the book suggestion; I will totally read that!

@Rachel - I'd love to see what your friend wrote about investing! It's something I'm interested in learning about as I currently have no clue. If you're able to send it over: yael.santo@gmail.com

As for me, I'm currently too busy paying off student debt ($1000 down in 3 months! WOO) and saving for a super-cheap, super-DIY summer wedding to consider retirement.

Then again, I say that and I'm still putting a touch aside for travel and a future home/condo.

Retirement savings is a near-future plan, along with investing - I heard about this couple in their 30s who had learned how to invest & did it so smartly that they retired at 37 or something like that. And they were fully set for the rest of their lives & would have money to leave to their children.

Yes - wheeeee, 9% (minimum - did you know public servants earn 15.4%? A lot of engineering jobs pay 15% also) Australian superannuation! I wound up with about ten different accounts though from switching jobs so often and wound up paying a financial advisor to sort it all out for me...lazy, I am. But now it's in one big shiny pile

I have a 401k through work. I think I'm currently saving something like 6%, and my employer matches half of that. I basically set it to an amount that would be not so much that I would miss it from my paycheck, and get a decent match from work. It's better to have something in there early than forget until later, so!

I am totally with indiraa, I put $$s away now so that it will work for me later (my mom says it is called compounding interest or something) and I can relax a little and do all the non career goals (ie take a year off) without feeling like I am falling behind. I put away 5% and my company matches five. When I get a yearly salary adjustment I add another % or two to my 401K.

Sadly, no, I'm not planning for our future. Being in my 30's, I understand that it is foolish of me to be living from paycheck to paycheck without being able to sock anything away, but there is not much I can do about it right now. I'm embarrassed.