Our family recently experienced a setback in our take-home pay. Although this may sound like a big concern, we’re actually pretty excited because it means we’re investing in our long term future.<\/p>\n
My employer has promised to match our contributions to our 401(k), but even after working here a year I never got around to doing it. I always figured that since I’m still in school that it didn’t make any sense to put money into a retirement account. I read over personal finance articles that prompted me to take advantage of this free money, and I even heard the same thing from my parents and in-laws. Why didn’t we do it earlier? Laziness, pride, fear: take your pick. I guess I figured I really needed this money now, but when I look at our family budget, it would be easy to make a few sacrifices here and there in order for us to invest in a retirement account. I told the greedy part of me that this meant I would be doubling that money since it was matched by my employer. When I finally made the change it took less than ten minutes to do, but I can never get back the free money I could have had by doing it earlier.<\/p>\n