Ready to retire? Maybe not

About 6 percent of team members fall in the "I'm never going to retire" camp, while 24 percent say they're not sure if they will, according to the 2008 Firstline Professional Growth Study. And 13 percent say they don't think they'll be able to afford retirement. Figure 1 shows how team members plan to pay for life after work.

Not surprisingly, the percent of team members who say they can't afford to retire jumps from 15 percent among 50 to 54 year olds to 25 percent among 55 to 59 year olds as they close in on retirement. And the study also shows a bump in the number of people contributing to retirement plans after they turn 30 or 40.

Paying for retirement

"Most people don't start saving and investing because they spend more than they make," says Fritz Wood, CPA, CFP, a financial consultant who owns H.F. Wood Consulting in Lake Quivira, Kan. "They tend to live paycheck to paycheck, regardless of their income.

"Our No. 1 mistake is that we tend not to get starting saving and investing early enough," Wood says. "We procrastinate, losing the power of what Albert Einstein called the eighth wonder of the world—compounding, or the time value of money. I've never met anyone who regretted beginning to save at a young age, and I've never met anyone who didn't wish they could have started a decade earlier."