There are a lot of reasons why you should get started but the four advantages to investing early for retirement listed below are definitely reason enough to get you going.

When you invest early on there is more time for your money to earn returns and grow. There are forty years between the time you’re twenty and the time you’re sixty–and that’s a lot of time for whatever you can put into an account to earn yearly returns and become something you can live on.

There will always be something else you should be spending your money on, so it’s better to get into the habit of taking some out for retirement now than having to figure out how to afford it when you have two kids, a mortgage, and a car loan on your back.

If you don’t take advantage of your 401k contribution match from your employer the money is literally just passing you by. This is a benefit at your job that you won’t be seeing anywhere else so you’re losing money by not taking advantage of it. You won’t be able to start saving ten years from now and ask for all that money you missed out on then. If you don’t have a lot of cash right now then taking advantage of the contribution match is a great way to set a minimum goal for how much you want to be investing right now.

The earlier you start saving the more you’ll have when you reach retirement age, and the better chances you’ll have of being able to retire early. While this may seem like a long ways off now, once the time comes you’ll be very grateful that you were smart enough to think of this ahead of time. The earlier you can retire the sooner you can spend your days doing whatever it is you don’t have enough time for now.