Between staying on top of monthly bills and paying down debt, it’s easy to put retirement planning on the back burner.

But one local expert says the time to save is now, no matter your age.

“As soon as a person gains meaningful employment in the work force, they should start planning. It is never too early,” said Bill Smith, president of W.A. Smith Financial Group and chief advisor of Great Lakes Retirement Inc.

But most young people live in the moment and soon are raising children and paying on mortgages. The majority of people who step into W.A. Smith Financial Group are within 10 years of retirement.

“That is not enough time,” Smith said.

People who are successful in retirement had a plan and stuck to it.

They also play it safe with their money. Risk can be devastating to a financial portfolio.

“You can’t get greedy. What happens if the stock market goes down and you are living off that?” Smith said. “The key tomaking money is not losing money. You cannot make that time up.”

Smith suggests people have diverse financial portfolios that incorporate a variety of investment products such as mutual funds and bonds, as well as investment vehicles such as 401(k) plans, Roth 401(k) plans, simple and Roth Individual Retirement Accounts, and others.

The longer a person contributes to a retirement plan, the larger the return that can be earned. Such is the miracle of compounding interest, Smith said.

The parable of the tortoise beating the hare to win the race is true in savings as in life, he said.

W.A. Smith’s four simple steps to beginning your retirement planning:

1) Set a target date for when you want to retire.

2) Determine how much monthly income you will need to live, taking into consideration generating income while you are retired. This is perhaps the hardest step. A person will need to project out the income and expenses in their lifetime to the anticipated retirement date. “That becomes your goal,” Smith said.

3) Identify your resources. Will you have a private pension, a government pension or rely on Social Security? “Look at it in relation to your projected date, then ask: ‘How short am I to meeting the goal?’” Smith said.

4) Determine how to set up your investment resources for retirement. If you need $4,000 a month and your pension or Social Security gives you $3,000 a month, you need a retirement portfolio that will generate another $1,000 a month.

All of this will give you a blueprint on how much you need to be saving to retire.

Big mistake

The two biggest mistakes people make in retirement saving:

• They do not have a retirement plan.

• They carry way too much risk in their portfolio.

Source: W.A. Smith Financial Group