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Published on April 29, 2008

Martha M Hamilton

The Washington Post

Her university education had not touched on personal finance, but her first boss made sure new employees understood the importance of putting money into the company's 401(k).

"He explained it real simply," she said, telling new workers to save at least enough to qualify for the company's matching funds.

Cyrus said he would tell new employees: "You're young now and think you need all your money, but you don't."

"He was like a drill sergeant: 'Don't even think about what I'm telling you. Just do it'," she said.

He had a receptive audience in Cyrus, who is 32 and has been saving since then in workplace savings plans and individual retirement accounts.

On top of her retirement savings, she has invested in real estate, buying a home at age 25 and acquiring three rental properties. She likes to eat out and travel, but she plans ahead and saves for special trips or takes them when she knows she will have enough extra income to afford them. She pays her bills on time, in order to avoid late fees and interest. And after working for a variety of consulting and other firms, she is building her own business: Priority Money Management. She helps individual clients manage their day-to-day finances.

But even with all she has saved and all she has done, she worries: "That might not be enough."

Knowing how much is enough can be tough, especially when retirement is more than 30 years away. But starting early and saving as much as possible is a surer way to get there than putting it off.

Cyrus is more financially tuned in than many young workers, but I often hear on my online chats from young workers who are starting to save for retirement in their 20s. At least they know, in a way many people of their parents' generation did not realise, that they will probably be responsible for a large share of their own retirement security.

Cyrus, who grew up in Washington, the daughter of immigrants from Trinidad, said she got her fascination with saving from her father.

"When he came home, he put all of his change in a leather case and basically said to us whoever comes in and counts the change and puts it in rolls could put it in their own bank accounts and could keep it," she said.

Cyrus took him up on it, while her brothers and sisters did not. She thinks she began at about age five.

She remembers "taking the change and spreading it out on Mom and Dad's bed". She opened a passbook savings account at a bank.

"The lady would give me the new balance in my chequebook, and I just loved to see it grow."