<prompt> Human: This terrified the hell out of me. The honest answer is that she will need to work until she cant and then she will live in poverty. Ive hit the 26 milestone, and have made no retirement or investment plans of any kind. ---Where Im currently at: 17k in student loan debt. Im still a student, but Ive secured a job where Im making enough money that I no longer need to use loans for booksclasses, so this number will not get any larger. Ive been slowly paying it down little by little. That is currently my only dept. Car is paid for, credit cards are all paid off at the end of the month. About 12k in savings. On which I earn an interest rate of about .0007... I make about 40kyear. My only real expenses are rent 800mo, internet 50mo, school 1.3k3-4months, and food Probably more than it should be.. I enjoy eating out. I work for a pretty small company, so no 401k or anything like that is offered. What would be the best first step towards planning for retirement? Take care of the loan first? Start saving immediately? And how?  <response>: I would check to see if your small company doesnt offer a 401kSIMPLE IRA, or if they dont offer matching. I worked at some very small companies that still had unmatched retirement accounts.1 Setup an emergency fund of 6 months expenses done?2 Open a Roth IRA with Vanguard and max it out each year3 Pay down student debts4 Contribute to unmatched retirement account5 Contribute to a taxable brokerage account 