Planning for Retirement It is never too soon to start putting money away for retirement or too late. But sooner is better. The longer you have until you need to use the money to retire on, the more the magic of compound interest will work for you. A dollar put away in your 20's is worth a lot more than those same dollars in your 50's. What is the best investment to use for retirement? The best investment is the one that you actually put money into. Many people never get started. There are of course ones that give better return than others. But we learned in the 1990's, as Will Rogers once said when asked his feelings on investing "I'm not as worried about the return ON my money as I am about the return OF my money." The greater the possible return the higher the risk of the investment. You should seek out investments that let you sleep at night knowing your money is there. Make sure you can afford the risk. Diversification is also important. Do not bet the farm on one horse. And invest for the long term. Don't be an American statistic. We, in this country, chase investments. People see an investment that is hot, pour their money into it often at the wrong time, only to see it turn not so hot. Measure you risk tolerance and invest accordingly. Diversify the risk by diversifying your investment portfolio. Use dollar cost averaging. Regularly invest your money into top quality investments, such as index mutual funds. You will end up buying them when they are low, in the middle and high but you will come out ahead in the long run. Historically Americans buy high and sell low. Most investment advisors will tell you to invest in the things for the long term and hold them. When you change an investment you pay someone fees to sell and to buy. Understand what fees are being charged. Not all investments are created equal when it comes to fees. And bigger fees don't always mean its a bad investment. Investing 101 You don't have to be an expert to be an investor, but being informed is important. In investing there are a couple of definitions that are significant. There are two aspects to investing. The legal side and the investing side. Congress wrote certain laws that resulted in the creation of products like IRA - Roth and Regular IRA's Simplified Employee Pension Plans Simple IRA for businesses 401k's Profit Sharing Plans so on The investments: Stocks Bonds Real Estate Variable Annuity & regular annuities Mutual Funds Cd's Limited Partnerships so on The law created the products. You choose the one that fits your needs best. Then almost all the investments can be used to fund the retirement product the you choose. And in some cases you can actually have several investments under the product such as an IRA. How to pick an investment advisor I don't recommend the yellow pages or the newspaper as a place to start. Ask people for referrals. There are qualified and competent advisors you just have to find them. If you get a call on the phone, that's probably not the person you want to work with. Do some homework, ask for endorsements from current clients.