There may be more than one answer to this because there are degrees of seriousness of ER planning, I suppose.
In my case, early on (right out of college) I had read that the sooner you start the better, so I started contributing to a 401(k) as soon as I was eligible. I would have been about 23. I wasn't contributing the max, and I had not done any calculations about what I might need and how I might get there.
By the time I was in my late 20s I was maxing out my 401(k), after increasing the contribution with each raise - another tip I had read. I had also started investing some money on the side. Still, the outside investments were more for speculation, and I still hadn't done any real number crunching. I also had never opened an IRA.
I was in my early 30s before I actually got 'serious'. Id say around 33 or 34 I started crunching numbers, opened IRAs, started serious reading about investing, and put together an asset allocation model based on index investing.
How about the rest of you?
In my case, early on (right out of college) I had read that the sooner you start the better, so I started contributing to a 401(k) as soon as I was eligible. I would have been about 23. I wasn't contributing the max, and I had not done any calculations about what I might need and how I might get there.
By the time I was in my late 20s I was maxing out my 401(k), after increasing the contribution with each raise - another tip I had read. I had also started investing some money on the side. Still, the outside investments were more for speculation, and I still hadn't done any real number crunching. I also had never opened an IRA.
I was in my early 30s before I actually got 'serious'. Id say around 33 or 34 I started crunching numbers, opened IRAs, started serious reading about investing, and put together an asset allocation model based on index investing.
How about the rest of you?