Have you considered working for a startup company instead of jumping into a major company for your first gig?

“Social network site Facebook has set a price range for an initial public offering (IPO) of stock that values the company at between $85bn and $95 billion.” — BBC UK

With stats like that it’s tempting to want to jump on board with some startup company in hopes of making it big. You can find yourself a conservative job where you save for your retirement in the future or you can go all in and jump on board with a young, ambitious startup company.

When it comes to saving for retirement, we need to take a deep look at our careers. The job that we choose to work in our 20s will dictate what we do with our retirement planning. If you take the chance of working with a company that doesn’t have a predictable future, you might have to hold off on the huge investments into your retirement. On the other hand, you can land a stable job where you have a clear cut plan for your retirement figured out.

Should you work for a startup company when saving for retirement? 

Personal finance and retirement planning all come down to your personal goals. Some of us want to take on the world and not even worry about money. There are others that want to earn a honest living.

“You cannot create a piece of art merely for money. Doing it as part of commerce so denudes art of wonder that it ceases to be art.”  – Seth Godin

Do you want a safe job? Do you want to take some risks in your 20s?

I can’t answer any of these questions for you. I have friends that fall on both sides of the equation here. My friend James took a steady full-time job in his late-20s because he wanted to be able to budget and start planning for his retirement. Then my buddy Alex on the flip side, he’s more concerned with working on his own business, and he rarely even thinks about retiring let alone saving for retirement.

What retirement planning comes down to in my opinion is the moves that you want to make in your 20s. You can decide to take major risks and work on your own projects. You can also decide to find a safe job where you can plan for your retirement without any stress. I can’t tell you what to do. I just want you to be aware of your choices.

We preach the good word of saving for retirement on here. We all know that compound interest is a good thing. We all know that you should start saving for retirement as early as possible. None of us want to work until we’re 70 years old and barely able to move. We all want to retire early.

What if you can’t start your career? What if you don’t have a sufficient amount of income coming in?

I just read that college graduates are struggling to find work over at USA Today. While this isn’t a secret since we all know that it’s not easy to find work right out of college, it’s always scary to see a well-researched article on the topic.

What scared me the most about this article when it comes to retirement savings and income in your 20s is the following excerpt:

“Young adults with bachelor’s degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs — waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example — and that’s confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans.”

The reality here is that many of the 20-somethings reading this are struggling to find work after college in their respective fields. This means that you can’t start your career. This means that you have to hold off saving for retirement.

I wanted to provide you with one solution here when it comes to retirement savings and difficulty with starting your career.

What can you do if you can’t start your career, but what to save for retirement?

You need to think about the long term. Sure compound interest is great and it makes sense to start earlier. However, you need to do whatever it takes to land yourself a job (career) in your field. This should be priority number one. Once you start working in the field then you can begin to worry about retirement savings and other financial goals.

How much should you spend on starting your career? I believe that you should spend all of your time and money on trying to get into your field in your 20s. The reason for this is that the sooner you start moving your way up the ranks, the sooner that you can save for retirement and take advantage of opportunities that are offered by your company when it comes to retirement.

It sucks that you can’t find your dream career right out of college, but you need to deal with what’s thrown at you. You’ll eventually find the job that you want. The goal is to find this job sooner so that you can start saving for retirement sooner.

Let’s pretend that you’re in your 20s and you finally landed that apprenticeship. You studied hard, worked hard, tapped into your network, and now you finally landed that apprenticeship in your desired field. Congratulations to you! You’re on your way to landing that job that you’ve been after for so long.

You’re also likely earning money for the first time ever. You have a steady income coming in. You’re earning a fraction of what you’ll be making in the future. You’re excited to at least have some money coming in. You start getting a few paychecks. You’re just unsure of what to do with your income.

Where am I going with this piece?

You should start saving money as soon as the opportunity arises. This post is a shout out to all 20-somethings that are finally generating some income for the first time. I just want you to remember that it’s never too early to start taking personal fiancee seriously. It’s never too early to start saving for your retirement.

Before you run away, allow me to do some convincing first.

Why should you start saving up for retirement so early on with your first apprenticeship?

I wanted to highlight why I personally chose to open up a retirement account when I was just 18 years old and not even old enough to drink alcohol:

• Have compound interest on your side.
• A tangible goal.
• Retire early.
• Less stress in your older years.
• Build a solid portfolio.
• Have a backup plan.

Will you start saving for retirement early? I hope that the points mentioned here have convinced you.

How can you save for retirement with your first source of income?

Saving for retirement is sort of scary. You don’t know where to go or how to start because none of your friends have gone through this process yet. It comes off as pretty intimidating. What do you do?

All you have to do is make an appointment at your local bank. You walk in, fill out a few forms, chat a bit, and you can have your retirement account opened in a few minutes. It’s really that simple.

You can check out apprenticeships UK for more details on actually landing that apprenticeship that you’ve been thinking about going for. Once you find an apprenticeship or come close to it, you can consider looking into your retirement. As this blog suggest, do not wait, my friend.