With nearly $1 million in retirement savings, plus the promise of a monthly pension benefit, 62-year-old Paul Lassance is confident about his retirement prospects.
But he can't help thinking about how much better off he would be if he had done a better job of socking away money during his first decade in the workforce.
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Lassance had spent nine years at his first job when the failing company cashed out its pension plan -- one year short of when his pension would become vested. At his next job, he didn't stay long enough to qualify for retirement benefits.
He now wishes he had taken his retirement into his own hands and started contributing to an IRA in those early working years.
But he learned his lesson. Since his current employer started offering a 401(k) on top of its pension plan around 20 years ago, he has maxed out contributions each year. And he has put money in a Roth IRA for more than a decade.
"The compounding would have really helped me a lot," he said. "I look at what I put in once I started and how that's grown over the years."
