Spotlight: Clark Howard
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But if, like most people, you start saving for retirement sometime after age 40, well, if I told people how great an amount of money they would have to save in order to have a comfortable retirement at age 65, they'd freak out. So, my philosophy is, if you start saving for retirement later in life, that means you'll just have to retire later. You're then in a whole different game. You might be talking about only semiretiring or having to work part-time until you finally retire much, much later in life.

So saving money for retirement would take precedence over, say, saving money for children's future college educations?

Exactly. There are no scholarships for retirement, but there are plenty of scholarships, loans, grants as well as job opportunities for a young person heading off to college. A parent should not save the first penny of money for college until they've covered their own retirement. And here I'm talking about saving the maximum amount you're allowed to, tax-free and tax-advantaged, for retirement in a 401(k) plan and your Roth IRA. That all takes priority over saving money in a kid's 529 plan.

Shakespeare admonished to "neither borrower nor lender be." Do you subscribe to this philosophy?

I don't think there's anything wrong with people owning bonds. You know that if you own bonds, you're a lender -- you are lending money to other people. And that's all part of building long-term security and wealth in your 401(k) plan, Roth IRA or whatever investment accounts you have. So, I think it's perfectly fine to be a lender.

Now as far as being a borrower goes, I really and truly absolutely despise debt. Carrying as little debt as possible, having zero debt, is a very smart plan for your life.