<prompt> Human: So Im a college student working as a barista at an on campus location for a smaller national coffee and tea place. Ive been here about 6 months and just got some mail about qualifying for the companys retirement saving options.Is there any point in enrolling? Im going to be here maximum 1 more year and Im making roughly 2-300week. It doesnt really seem like Ill put away enough to make it worth it.Edit: I seriously appreciate all of the answers. Money is somewhat tight with expenses but Im going to see if they match, and if so Ill do my best to start saving min. 5 of my income for retirement. I know I do have a Roth IRA already so Ill take advantage of that sweet sweet compound interest, thanks everyone!  <response>: So youre, like, 19 or 20 ? Lets say you retire at 65, in 45 years.Since its inception, the SP 500 has averaged a little less than 10 a year. Thats an average: some years it might have been much higher, and some years it might have been much lower.200 a week is 10k a year. 5 of that is 500. Leave that 500 in an account that gets an average of 10 growth a year, and it will be worth 35000. If you can manage to save more, of course it grows more.Conservative estimates are that you can pull 4 out of your retirement fund a year and still have enough money leftover to fund your average retirement. 4 of 35000 is 1400. -- thats almost 3x what you put in this year -- every year!. So one way to look at it is that if you simply save 5 of what you are making in an SP 500 fund now, and leave it there, you can recover that money and then some every year in retirement. Imagine how much you can save once you graduate college, get a higher-paying job, and still save 5 a year...Now get to it! 