According to the research of Employee Benefit Research Institute, Americans do not really think so much about their retirement savings. They do no set aside money to reach the traditional retirement, sometimes they do not save even for non-traditional retirement. When you look at the numbers, 68% of the workers are saving money for this fund, but half of them have less then $10,000 for this purpose.

There is only one solution – start saving. If you have an option for alternative investment like gold or commodities, then you can go for it. If you have a 401 (k) plan, you need to check how much the percentage that you contribute inside your account is. Usually this is the minimum of 7%, so you have to increase it at least to 10 %. Now is the time to start saving. You should not think that your lifestyle will change if you do that, because for the moment this is not such a big increase. But when you take a look in the future, then you will find that this is something that you need to take care of in order to provide you the lifestyle that you want to have when you become older. Just think how would you like your life to look after thirty years? Do you want to be one of these people worrying every day where to find money in order to buy medicine, milk or bread? And this could be a real problem because you do not know if you would be able to work something so that you can have the money for buying these necessities.

That is why you have to motivate yourself to start saving now, so that you can live your dreams when you retire. You need to go to the vacation that you have planned, you need to take care of your health, and you need to help your children or grandchildren. So, increase your investments in the 401 (k) plan. If you do not have one then arrange to transfer automatically 10 % of your salary into an IRA of Roth IRA. And if you want to motivate yourself then open a website that provides images how you are going to look like after 30 years. When you see your face, covered with wrinkles and your grey hair, you can not escape so easy from that image after that. If this does not work, prepare a list with things that you want to do when you retire and put it on a place where you can see it every day, like on your refrigerator door.

There are also the so called public policy risks; they refer to changes in Social Security, Medicare and taxes. Most of the Americans are really worried about such changes, and to be honest there is nothing that they can do. There is always the risk of some changes. Like for example, the increased age for retirement, which was 65 and now it is 67. The good news is that changes are happening step by step so you will have the time to make adjustments. The change in the age for retirement is happening for 22 years, and in 11 of them it will be at the age of 66.

The other thing that could be worrying is the tax change. So now is the time to think which way of saving money is the best for avoiding big taxes. People using Roth IRAs or Roth 401 (k), actually have accounts that are tax free. Sometimes when you have to withdraw money you can do it from taxable accounts first. The next choice will be tax-differed accounts and your last choice will be your retirement accounts.

There is no guarantee that your accounts are safe, without any risks. For the moment there are two ways to defend them, according the experts – to use them and invest in municipal bonds or convert one traditional IRA into a Roth IRA and lock it in such a way at the current income tax rates.