Assuming you’ll save more later

1. Assuming you’ll save more later. It’s very easy to procrastinate on setting up retirement accounts and making saving a priority. You’ve got a paycheck now and too many places to spend it. Maybe in the future, when you’ve gotten a raise or two, you can amp up your retirement savings. But that kind of thinking is a great way to have no savings for retirement. You can’t count on higher paychecks in the future. And even if you do make more later, any day you wait is a day lost to the magic of compound interest. There are plenty of ways you can get bailed out and still live a comfortable retirement, but none of them are guaranteed and the chances of any of the good fortunes happening aren’t great. The only thing you can count on is that you can do the responsible thing now.

4. Tapping your retirement for emergencies. Sometimes crises arise and your emergency fund isn’t enough to cover the expenses. It can be tempting to look at all the lovely cash sitting in your retirement accounts and think about how it could solve your crisis. But not only is thi...