Pay Your Future Self First 
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(Words on screen: So what do I do with my money?)
(Words on screen: Pay Your Future Self First)
(Speaker, male) If you're in mid-career or later, then you have some idea of how much retirement has changed over the past few decades. In the past, we had this great system and retirees could rely on a traditional company pension and very generous Social Security income. But today, we're really on our own when it comes to building a secure retirement. 
The other thing that makes this difficult is at the same time, we're living longer and we expect to be more active in retirement then maybe prior generations. And so the question is, how do we pay for longer retirements in today's new world? 
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With that in mind, you need to define what retirement means to you. And it's going to vary by individual. 
(Image: Three checked boxes each leading to a different item such as a book, cruise ship, and man and child flying kite)
Having a vision is the first step in forming a realistic financial plan, including how do you plan to turn your savings into retirement income down the road. 
(Words on screen:  INCOME)
And most important of all, you need to take some action. And when it comes to taking action, the more you focus on things you can control, the better. You can't control the markets. You can't control the return on your investment. But you can control how much you save. And saving really is the single biggest action that you can take, the biggest area over which you have control that goes towards improving your retirement security. 
It's not enough to say you're going to save more. You actually need to take that action. 
(Image:  Scale with "do" on one side and "say" on the other, with "do" weighing more than "say")
And research from a Harvard economist shows that out of every 100 employees surveyed, 68 say they aren't saving enough. But only 24 say that they will raise their savings rates within the next two years. And only three of them actually follow through. 
So that's why you need to do what you can to lock in your intention to save more by making it automatic.
 If you have a 401k, ask your employer about using auto escalation to increase your savings annually. Auto escalation is a feature of 401k plans whereby every year, your savings amount increases automatically without you having to take any action. 
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(Image:  Stairs escalating with a percentage on each step starting with 1.0% and increasing in .5 increments)
If you use an IRA, set up an automatic transfer from your checking account each payday to pay yourself first. In many ways, retirement is about paying your future self so that you can meet your future needs.
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