You're approaching 50 -- or maybe you've even passed it by -- and it suddenly dawns on you that you need to fatten up your retirement fund in a hurry.
If you're in a high enough income tax bracket, the solution may be simply to think outside of the fund. While there are limits on how much money you can contribute to a tax-favored qualified retirement plan, you can save as much as you want somewhere else.
"Somehow people have a tendency to believe that the only money they can have in retirement has to have the word IRA attached to it … and that's just not true," says Scott Cramer, president of Cramer & Rauchegger, a financial advisory firm in Winter Park, Fla. "If you have maxed out your IRAs and your 401(k)s, don't be afraid to put money into a savings account."
Or you can open a taxable brokerage account.
From Cramer and other financial advisers, Bankrate got seven more strategies that late or slow starters can use to bump up their retirement savings.