David,
Here is my real life story – In 1985 I was hired by a large automotive firm fresh out of college. The HR person doing the hiring gave me 401K paperwork to fill out. I told him that I wasn’t making enough money to save for retirement – I was just out of college!
The man looked me in the eye and told me that if I didn’t sign up with 6% of my income right then and there, he wasn’t going to hire me! So, I signed up, and when I left that company 4 years later, I had a small nest egg of about $6,000, which I rolled over to a brokerage house. I never added any more money into that account, but it has materialized into six figures!
So to the people who think that it’s not possible – it is, and it doesn’t take much – I got my quarterly statements, re-balanced the account every couple of years, and let it grow! For those folks, individuals such as David Bach provide simple instruction on how to be this successful – because we all don’t have smart HR employees when we get jobs.
I took my savings habit with me as I went from job to job – and remembered to ROLL OVER, and not cash out, the 401k’s and 403b’s (not for profits) that I accumulated along the way – I still max out my 401k, and should hit my first million within about 5 years – what a feeling that will be!
