> It’s even worse when people come up with deferred life plans. They’ll say something like “When I’m forty, I’m going to retire and write a book” or “I’ll do this thing I hate right now so I can make money, then in ten years I’ll do what I really love”. Seriously? You think that the universe is going to let your life proceed the way you want it to? What guarantee do you have of making it to that age?

This is often used as a reason not to save when you're young, and to generally dunk on the the traditional idea of retirement. Believe this and in a few decades we're going to have a large number of people aged 80-120 seriously struggling. Apart from a recent dip, average life expectancy in the US has been going up pretty much forever. Life is not necessarily long, but it can be. Yes, you might drop dead of a heart attack the day before you retire, so all that saving was a waste. You also might make it past 100. Who among us has enough savings to last until they are 100? You won't if you're spending every penny you have when you're young.

Thanks to compounding interest, the best time to save and invest is when you are young. A dollar earned and invested when you're 20 is many times more valuable than that dollar earned when you're 60.