BALANCE SPENDING NOW WITH SAVING FOR LATER

WHEN IT COMES TO RETIREMENT PLANNING, timing is everything. You have to do some things as early as possible—like starting to put money away for retirement—but you also have to consider when to take on big pre-retirement expenses.

Those can include starting a family (with all the daily and college tuition expenses that entails) or starting a business. Perhaps you want to do both. But that doesn’t mean you should let your retirement planning slide.

“The key is to start saving early,” says Ric Edelman, co-founder of advisory firm Edelman Financial. “The earlier you start, the more compound interest can work for you.”

Indeed, if a 25-year-old saved just $250 per month, he