For a successful retirement plan, you have to think about those years and save, too. Here’s how to do both

It’s never too early to start thinking about and planning for retirement—and turns out plenty of young people have taken that to heart: Almost 40% of adults in their 20s have put away money for retirement. Even still, retirement may feel out of reach for others: 20% of people over age 50 have no retirement savings at all.

If retirement is the dream, why do people put off the planning? Budgets might not allow much extra saving, or unexpected life events may push even the best mapped-out goals sideways. And: Planning for retirement is hard. It’s hard to know how much to save, when to start, where to save, and whether you’re making enough progress.

Before you panic, know that it’s never really too late to learn just what “planning for retirement” means—and how to do it. It doesn’t matter where you are on that continuum—you know little and are just getting started, or have a good handle but want to fine tune your approach. You may have to adjust, adapt, and trim your timeline, but you can still figure what it means to plan for your retirement, and start saving. Here’s how.

Retirement planning is both a thing you do (save money) and a thing you think about (what life looks like in retirement).

Let’s start with what life looks like in retirement. If you’re early in a career, retirement may feel fuzzy. Who knows where you’ll be living in five years, much less what you want to do in five decades?

But you can start to craft a storyline for your retirement no matter how old you are; the likelihood of it changing is what you need to embrace. “I always try to help encourage people to put a few steps into place, and it always starts first by thinking about what matters most to them right now, what's most critical to them,” says Heather Winston, financial professional and product director for Retirement and Income Solutions at Principal^®. “And then, what do they want to do later? Just simply: now and later.”

One key element is a rough idea for when you want to stop working, or transition into a different type of work. That date and the ideas you sketch out for retirement give some framework to the thing you do, which is saving money (see below). As your retirement storyline changes, that money goal may change, too.

Say you want to buy a car in two years, and would like to put $5,000 as a downpayment. That means you have 24 months to save about $208 a month.

Retirement planning and saving works much the same way—only typically you get to think in terms of years or decades, not months. And the total savings goal may not be down to the dollar, but instead a more general ballpark number.

The question, of course, is what that number should be. Tools and calculators can offer a good base; a financial professional can add specificity. The number might seem big, but the more time you have, the more time you can save and garner the rewards of potential growth. And just like with smaller-scale savings goals, you’ll work backwards from your dream retirement date to where you are now (and what you have saved so far).

Ask any financial professional and they’ll probably tell you that habits often end up influencing success. Retirement planning is no different. The habit is simply learning and committing to putting money away; then you can build the financial muscle to know how much to save.

A little is OK, especially if you’re just beginning. It’s also OK to pull back (or push forward) so that you can pivot when it comes to unexpected expenses or life events. “The overarching goal is to save as much as you can, in as many ways as you can, so you can make the most of your years in retirement,” says Winston.

One key consideration: Even if you’re not sure of your exact retirement goals or date, the more time you save, the more you’ll gain from financial concepts like compound interest. For example, imagine this scenario: You start saving in your mid-20s for just 15 years, or you start saving at age 35 and stash money away for 30 years. You’d have more in the latter scenario than the former, right? Surprisingly, not necessarily.

“Investing young, even if it’s just a small percentage of your income, does two things,” says Winston “First, it establishes good savings habits that will apply universally, regardless of what your savings goals are. Second, the sooner you start, the longer your money has the potential to grow over time.”

There are a number of ways to save, whether you’ve got a retirement plan through your employer or not. If you have a 401(k) through work, common wisdom is to save enough to get the employer match (if offered). If you don’t have a workplace plan, consider an individual retirement account (IRA) or Roth IRA. The latter two are funded by you but not dependent on where you work, so you can add to them as income limits and savings ability change.

Tackling the administrative tasks of your life—filing, updating addresses after a move for example—can end up low on the priority list. If that’s the case, you’re not alone: About four million retirement accounts every year are left behind.

But as you refine your retirement planning, tracking down all your accounts and assembling information on current savings helps you put together a holistic view of your potential retirement income.

For more and more people, that includes what’s called phased retirement, or working in some capacity beyond the typical retirement age. About half of all people over age 50 who are working think they’ll continue to do so past age 70. And including a phased-out work goal in your retirement planning can also help if you got a late start or had bumps in retirement savings road.

And yes, your potential income sources should include Social Security. (Currently, you’ll reap the biggest financial benefit by waiting until age 70.) What form Social Security may take when you retire depends a lot on future benefit levels and legislative support, to name just two factors. You can see your forecasted potential benefits by creating an online Social Security account.

Going through these steps of planning for retirement isn’t a one-time exercise; it’s something you do as frequently as you need to, but hopefully at least once a year. Doing so also gives you an opportunity to update your information (including beneficiaries) and re-assess that initial retirement story you created. “Life will bring twists and turns and those events will change how you prioritize your goals along the way,” Winston says. “But no matter who you are, how much you have saved, or what your dream is, there are ways to help make it come to life.”