Here's the Average 20-Something's Retirement Savings Balance. How Does Yours Compare?

When you're in your 20s, retirement may be the last thing on your mind. After all, at that stage of life, you may be busy trying to pay off lingering credit card debt while managing your bills and socking money away for things like taking vacations and, eventually, buying a home of your own.

But it's really important to consistently fund an IRA or 401(k) plan starting in your 20s. Doing so could mean setting yourself up with a lot of money in retirement.

A lot of people in their 20s don't have any retirement savings at all. But the average 20-something has a retirement savings balance of $35,800, according to Northwestern Mutual's latest Planning & Progress Study. And if your balance is comparable, it means you're in really solid shape.

A really strong start

It's quite impressive to have $35,800 in retirement savings in your 20s given that you probably haven't been working full time all that long. And you should know that even if you were to sit back and not add another dollar to your IRA or 401(k) between now and retirement, you'd likely end up with a lot of money.

The stock market has, over the past 50 years, delivered an average annual 10% return before inflation, as measured by the S&P 500 index. So let's say your retirement portfolio is very stock-focused, and you're able to score a 10% yearly return on your investments, too.

Let's also say that you're 29 years old with $35,800. If you were to leave that money invested at 10% a year and untouched until age 67, you'd end up with a balance of about $1.4 million.

This doesn't mean, however, that you should stop adding money to your nest egg. Quite the contrary -- if you keep up that good work, you might end up retiring with an almost unbelievably large sum of money.

In fact, let's say you have $35,800 in savings at age 29, and you continue to add $300 a month to your nest egg between now and age 67. Assuming that same average annual 10% return, you'll be looking at retiring with a whopping $2.65 million. Make it $500 a month, and you stand to retire with over $3.5 million.

What if you haven't gotten started?

It may be that you're in your 20s and you have a lot less than $35,800 in retirement savings. You may even have no savings at all. But if that's the case, you're not doomed. All you need to do is start funding your IRA or 401(k) sooner rather than later.

In fact, let's say you're 29 and want to retire at 67. Even if your current balance is $0, if you save $250 a month between now and then, you'll wind up with about $1.1 million, assuming a 10% average annual return on your investments.

But do yourself a favor and start saving now. For each year that goes by, you lose out on critical growth opportunities in your IRA or 401(k). So while you don't have to beat yourself up over having a lower or nonexistent savings balance, you should make funding your nest egg a priority, even with retirement being very far away.