If a person came up to you in the street, confronted you with a gun, and told you to give him all your money, you would call him a criminal. When politicians tell the American people that social security is their best bet a secure retirement they are perpetrating a worse crime than getting rob on the street.

The return of your social security investment is miserable. You take a thousand dollars and invest it for 45 years you are going to come out with more than $600 a month on your return.

The average individual in America can began to work at 18. They have finished high school and are in the mood to make some money. Some people go off to study, but need to work at least part-time to support themselves. Others join the armed services. While still others are fortunate to have their parents pay for their education.

Either way the young American person can began to work at eighteen. Some began to work before they are eighteen. I am going to use 22 as a base date for starting to work. A person graduates at eighteen, studies for 4 years, and is in the job market by the time he or she is twenty-two.

Currently the age range is 65 to 67 (depending on when you were born) to retire and receive 100% of your social security benefits. When you start to work at 22 you have 45 years of work to contribute to your social security funded retirement, if you are among the ones that have to wait till 67 years for full benefits.

Do you honestly believe those 45 years of contribution should give such a poor return? You put any amount of money in a basic interest earning account such as savings account and you are still going to do better than social security.

Here is my retirement investment plan. Take advantage of your education. America has a good public education system that allows access to all. Young people no matter what work to receive a high school diploma.

Then you work to earn a college degree. In our present day, a person can study in an accredited distance learning program and earn a college degree with value. Therefore, even though, your personal experience is that you have to work in order to pay for your education, you can still get a degree with out burning your self out.

You go to work and earn your money. When you come home, you study when you want to. In addition, you do not have to attend classes. I can admit that working a full time job and attending college classes can be tiring. Distance learning programs give the student the freedom of time. You are not required to attend classes. The program I was in consisted of watching the class videos, reading the text books, doing the research assignments, and taking test at a test protectors location.

Therefore, in our modern world people really have no excuse not to study. Regardless of the rhetoric of the federal government cutting back on college grants, every year more money is given out in college grants.

Moreover, there is military road towards a college degree. The key is to not to limit yourself with negative thoughts.

Furthermore, do not have children until you are financial able to give your children everything they will require. No one can choose when they fall in love. Being love leads to intimacy, which leads to sex. Children come from sex. Be responsible to yourself and to the children you might have.

I think it is unfair for people to have children when they know they are going to struggle financially. Children require a lot. They need diapers, formula, healthcare, clothing every other month, lots of attention, and much more.

You as a person also need your sanity. Working in a low paying job, not making your expenses, but knowing that you cannot live with out a basic necessity can drive a person crazy. I have been there. That is why I drove myself as hard as I did to get a college degree.

Well now that you have earned a degree and are making good life choices, you can invest responsibly. I know a lot of people that graduate from college, get a good paying job, and then go on a mad spending spree trying to make up for everything they deprived themselves during their college years.

The end result is a lot of debt. They have car loans, mortgages, credit cards, and maybe even school loans to pay on for the twenty and thirty years.

I consider school loans as a good investment. As long as the money is used for school and a person does not borrow more than he or she needs, it is a good investment. At the end of your studies, you will have to pay these funds back to the lending institution. You will also have the means to earn a good salary, thus paying the money back easier.

Hence during your working years live with in your means, save, and then invest. There is no need to spend everything you make. No matter where you live, there is affordable housing. I do not see anything wrong with living in an apartment while you build your savings.

In addition, a good rule of household income management is 60/40%. You use 40% of your income to live off. You put away 60% in a savings account. Now, if your personal situation is that you cannot live off only 40% of your income, than you want to get to work and increase you income or pay down your debt.

Therefore, you work to get a high school degree, you work to get a college degree, you live with in your means, you save, and then you began to invest.

Every image, symbol, media, or person who is telling you to live it and indulge is lying to you. Yes, you will enjoy pleasure from such a life style. I will tell you that I know people living in excess, who are burning themselves out, and who are unhappy.

Eventually all of us are going to reach an age where we are not going to want to work, companies wont want to hire us, or our bodies are to run down to continue to work. This why we should use our younger years to work for our retirement.

I am not going to count on social security. Every year I get notices from SSI telling how much I count on if I reach retirement age. I could not live on $700 a month today. I am definitely not going to be able to live on that amount in thirty years.