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surrounding them. Always consult a trusted financial planner (or at least read a couple of those volumes) just to be sure you understand all your options. But no matter what, start planning for your retirement today.

Finally, as you may have thought, we didn't cover more traditional means of saving for retirement which for many years have been used by people long before some of these newer tax-friendly plans were available. Some of them include: savings accounts and CDs, real estate investments such as rental properties, precious metals such as gold, collectibles such as antiques, and owning a business such as a franchise like McDonald's.

All of the above and many more traditional investments are viable and time-tested methods to save for retirement. However, common sense for most of us dictates that first we should take advantage of many of the newer plans as they are simple to participate in, may require less capital, may have better returns, and may offer tax advantages unrivaled by many traditional investments. …