When Should I Start Planning for Retirement?

            Families, communities, and nations are stronger when each adult plans for their retirement years. Since it is never too early to plan for retirement, adults should start planning for retirement as soon as they start working full time. The sooner that a person starts investing for retirement, the sooner that their money will start earning compound interest.

            Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have long taught members of the Church to plan for the future. Since people are living longer now, retirement planning is even more important. President Ezra Taft Benson taught, “Plan for your financial future. As you move through life toward retirement and the decades which follow, we invite all … to plan frugally for the years following full-tie employment.”

            Planning for retirement grows more important as life spans increase. Fewer retirees have the benefit of pensions, which means that individuals must be pro-active about planning for retirement. With careful planning, we enjoy our retirement years, and we can leave inheritances for our posterity. Elder Sterling W. Sill taught the following:

God is a very wealthy personage. We all like to inherit from a wealthy parent and what could be more exciting than to inherit from God, to get everything that God has. Someone has said that thrift is a great virtue, especially in an ancestor. And God has been very thrifty, he has also been very wise and he has been very generous. To begin with, he created us in his own image and has endowed us with a set of his attributes and potentialities, the development of which is one of the purposes for which we live. He desires that every one of us should be rich. He has said: “… the fulness of the earth is yours …” (Doctrine and Covenants 59:16), and it pleaseth God that he has given all these things unto men to be used with judgment and thanksgiving. He has shared with us the fulness of the treasures of the earth and he desires to share with us the fulness of the treasures of heaven. He wants us to inherit the celestial kingdom and belong to that celestial order of which he himself is a member. And he has said that the greatest of all the gifts of God is the gift of eternal life in his presence (“A Fortune to Share,” October 1973 General Conference).

            God has prepared a plan for our eternal life – life after we leave this earth. By following His plan, we can prepare ourselves to be happy for eternity. By planning for retirement after our years of employment, we can enjoy many years of retirement and strengthen our family, community, and nation.