Remember in high school when your parents would give you money for doing chores or you scored some babysitting money? Do you also remember how it didn’t take you longer than 24 hours to blow right through that money?

I know I am not the only girl who ran straight to the mall when I had cash, right?

It’s funny because I recall my parents trying to explain to me the importance of saving, but for some reason (maybe because your parents know NOTHING when you are a high schooler) I never really listened to them.

They would tell me, “You should put that in your savings account.” And I would quickly say, “But mom, there’s this shirt at American Eagle that I NEED!”

And sure enough, every time, the money would be gone faster than I could count to ten.

You know why I never understood the importance of saving? Not because my parents didn’t try to instill it in me.

Nope. Not at all.

Because no one (besides my parents) ever tried to teach me about the importance of saving. Think about it. There is a grade school/high school class for EVERY other topic on the planet…besides money.

The reality…not a single kid I knew, at age 16, ever wanted to do anything their parents suggested. So if I wasn’t being taught it by someone else, like a teacher at school, I wasn’t truly understanding the importance.

Even in to college I didn’t get it. I worked part time as a waitress and most of the time as soon as I got my paycheck, it vanished from my bank account faster than it was deposited.

People (college friends and professors) started talking about this thing called “Retirement”.

Psssst.

I was 19, why on earth would I care about retirement?

Retirement, in my mind, meant old people.

Then I met my husband.

Funny enough, he was an intern at a local financial planning firm.

He started telling me that he would put money in to an IRA (Individual Retirement Account) to set aside for later in life. As we dated, I started learning more and more about what THAT really meant. I quickly became interested in saving. Mostly because it all had to do with a boy I liked, but nonetheless, I became interested.

It was probably the single best thing that happened to me near the beginning of our relationship. I finally was “getting” it. I now understood, after all these years of my parents telling me, WHY it was important to save for your future.

And so…I opened my first IRA account. Age 22.

I was under this silly impression that only people with A LOT of money could invest. Not true.

Not only did you not need to have a ton of money to open an IRA, you could contribute monthly, quarterly, yearly…any way you wanted.

I started out doing $25/month. I know, not a lot. But a lot for a college student.

After college and after marrying that cute financial boy I dated, I got a job at a local healthcare company in finance. Technically, my title was “Retirement Coordinator”. Funny right, since I thought retirement had nothing to do with young people.

My job was to help employees plan for their retirement. Time and time again I would speak to people who had no interest in saving for retirement. Most of them young (20’s & 30’s). They would all tell me, “I can’t afford to put any money away for that now, but when I’m older I will.”

The one thing I never understood is why people didn’t realize that “when your older”…it’s too late.

Luckily, my encounter with the cute-boy-turned-husband separated me from being of this same mind set.

I say luckily because I saw too many people who ended up having to prolong their retirement because they hadn’t saved enough. Some of them, hadn’t saved ANY.

I knew that if I hadn’t met my husband when I did, I may be right there with most of these employees who had a distorted concept of saving.

Fortunately my husband is passionate about finance and so he started a movement.

A Roth IRA Movement to be exact.

The Roth IRA is one of his favorite investment tools (and mine too).

He has always had a desire to teach and educate on the importance of saving. You can read about what triggered his movement here and why he decided MORE people need to understand that unless you SAVE – you won’t retire.

*You may even get a little snippet of him dancing to “I’m Sexy and I Know It”. Showing off his “moves” for the “movement”.  Ahem.

I can’t stress the impact that saving early can have on your future financial well being.

If you aren’t saving or aren’t saving enough, this is your chance to do something about it BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!

Don’t wait until a cute boy catches your attention to take action!

Click on over to Good Financial Cents and see why over 140 bloggers have teamed up to help spread the word about THE ROTH IRA MOVEMENT and the IMPORTANCE OF SAVING! While your over there go ahead and enter to win $5,000 to fund your IRA!

Yes, you read that correctly, my husband is having a $5,000 CASH giveaway on his blog to help you START saving NOW!

Don’t forget that tomorrow is week 5 of Stop and Smell the Roses! If you’ve been thinking about linking up, but are still not comfortable getting behind the camera…I challenge you this week to DO IT! Bust out of your comfort zone and join us nutty gals for some vlogging fun! 🙂