51% of Retirees Wish They'd Started Saving Earlier and Saving More. Here's When and What You Should Be Contributing to Your IRA

Many people enter retirement without a whole lot of money in savings. Some wrap up their careers with no nest egg at all. But if you don't make an effort to save nicely, you could end up in dire financial straits once retirement rolls around.

Social Security will replace about 40% of your wages if you're an average earner. But that doesn't account for potential benefit cuts, which could leave you collecting less money from the program in retirement.

And also, it's common for seniors to need well more than 40% of their former paychecks to manage their bills. So saving for retirement is pretty crucial.

In a recent Edward Jones study, 51% of current retirees said they have a couple of regrets with regard to building savings -- that they should've started earlier in life, and they should've saved more. If you don't want to end up with similar regrets, you'll need to start saving from a young age, and make every effort to pump as much money as possible into your retirement account.

How much should you be saving for retirement?

It's a good idea to sock away 15% of your income or more for retirement savings purposes. But for some people, that 15% just isn't doable.

If you're in that boat, that's okay. It's hard to part with 15% of your paycheck when you have a mortgage payment to cover, debts to pay off, and childcare expenses to contend with. So if 15% isn't doable, do the best you can. And also, aim to ramp up your savings rate as much as you can over time.

It may be that during your 20s and 30s, you can only afford to save 5% of your income for retirement. In your 40s, your earnings might pick up and your childcare costs might drop, allowing you to save 10% of your pay for retirement. And by the time you reach your 50s, 15% may be possible.

How soon should you start saving for retirement?

You may not be able to sock away 15% of your paychecks for the future. But saving even 1% of your income in your 20s is better than not starting to save at all.

In fact, let's say you were to start funding your IRA at age 22 and kept contributing all the way through age 67. Let's also say you're only able to contribute $100 a month to your retirement savings throughout that entire window.

Over the past 50 years, the stock market has delivered an average annual 10% return before inflation, as measured by the S&P 500's performance. So if you invest your IRA heavily in stocks or S&P 500 ETFs, you might enjoy that same return. And in that case, after 45 years of contributing $100 a month to your IRA, you'll end up with about $863,000.

The last thing you want is to enter retirement feeling as if you didn't save enough or start early enough. So take steps to avoid that by committing to funding your IRA starting now, and doing your best to save as much as you can.