Obviously, I do not want you to destroy your retirement! However, it is good to think about what you can do incorrectly that will hurt your financial future. By studying the mistakes, you can hopefully avoid them.
Yahoo Finance had a great article on the subject. You should jump over and read the entire article but here are the five ways that were identified.
- Too much debt.
- Spend your retirement savings on college.
- No emergency plan.
- No long-term investment strategy.
- No retirement plan.
All of these are bad choices. If I had to pick a 6th one it would be to trust that the US government was going to provide for you. This is not a political site and I do not want to get into political arguments. I do encourage you to be pragmatic if you are under the age of 55 and definitely under the age of 40. Assume that Social Security as it exists at this writing will likely change before you need it.