Get started with saving for your retirement goals

Starting to save now gives you an opportunity to build up significant savings over time, which means you could benefit from investment growth and compounding.

Benefit from the power of time

‘Compounding’ describes the way that any growth you achieve on your investments is applied to previous years’ growth as well as the amount you put aside. Compounding can be a lot more powerful than many people realise.

Here’s an example that shows the difference it can make:

Hannah invests €100 a month from the age of 25. Patrick invests €200 a month from the age of 45. Both of their savings grow at 5% a year and at retirement they have both put aside the same amount – €48,000.

However, Hannah has almost twice as much money as Patrick simply because it was invested for longer. This meant there was more time to achieve growth on previous years’ growth, as well as on the amount invested. Please remember that the value of all investments can fall as well as rise and you may get back less than you invest.

If you're saving into a workplace pension, your employer will pay in too. If you want to boost your savings, you can make additional voluntary contributions to your pension up to a maximum of €1,200.

If you want to check how much you are saving you can log in to PlanViewer.