<prompt> Human: 42 yo, married, no children, only debt is mortgage.Been at the same job for 15 years, contributing to a 403b. I put a couple hundred in a month, and the company actually contributes 10 of my salary, which Im told is pretty good. I started making 40k, up over 110k nowThe other day while cleaning out my garage I stumbled upon my old Savings Bonds. The ones my grandma would buy for me when I was in grade school. I had my moment of sentimentality over them, then went and looked at what they were worth. Lets just say the paper is worth more to me for sentimental purpose than what they are worth monetarily. 30 years, and they gained 50 dollars!?Anyway, that got me to thinking about interest. Ive always been told compounding interest is king. The key to retirement. So I went and took a look at my 403b aaannnddd... wow is that unimpressive. Aint nobody retiring on that! I ran some calculations on it, and even if the markets go well for the next 20 years, that account still isnt going to be all that impressive.I remember seeing these charts where the numbers start to fly off the end of the chart thanks to compounding interest. Well, there is no flying going on here! Haha.Im thinking one or a few things are going on:1. I hadhave unrealistic expectations. The people who originally explained compounding interest to me, oversold it.2. I am not putting enough money away to see the type of effect of compounding interest that people talk about.3. Maybe the calculators I am using are not correct, and my account actually will start to see this effect soon.I suspect to provide any REAL advice, you will need to see actual numbers. I will dig those up now and post in an EDIT, but would be interested if anyone has any immediate thoughts about this.EDIT: Total account is 190,990.49. Turns out I am actually contributing 500 a month. Guess I upped that at one point. Account seems well balanced, at least in terms of how TIAA-CREFs little recommendation tool tells me to balance it based on my age and risk tolerance.Assistant: TL;DR: Thats not great, but its not terrible either. And there is still time for you to catch up, but you need to tackle this now. Status quo: If you change nothing, and continue putting in 500mo. and assuming your company only matches up to 10, but doesnt contribute more than your individual contributions -- and this is how it normally works Edit: I see that you have a flat 10 match, which is awesome for you, and have adjusted the math accordingly, you are adding 12kyear 17kyear. Starting from your current balance of 190k, projecting out 23 years to a retirement age of 65, and assuming 7 real returns ie, after inflation over that period, you should have about 1.9M in todays dollars when you are 65. Thats obviously not awful, but its not fantastic either actually pretty close to sufficient, but it looks like itd fall just a hair short. It will yield a safe retirement income of about 52kyear 65kyear 3.5 withdrawal rate. Add in Social Security, and youre probably looking at around 75k 87k in income. This certainly isnt terrible its well above average, but it wouldnt quite be able to support your current lifestyle, making 110k and only saving 6k per year. So, you are behind and need to catch up a little.But the good news is you still have plenty of time to catch up. Optimal Solution: If you start maxing out your 403b 18kyear, plus the company match of 10 11kyear, you should have about 2.5M in todays dollars by the time youre 65. Youll have 85k in retirement income, plus Social Security, which should be able to replace your current income without problem. If the markets do really well in the next 20 years, you might even be able to retire a couple years early. Less Optimal Solution: At the very least, increase your contribution to 11kyear to take full advantage of the company match. This should yield about 2.1M in todays dollars by the time youre 65 and give you a retirement income of 75k plus Social Security. Depending on taxes, that should be pretty close to replacing your current income. Youre most likely going to need to work until 65.EDIT: formattingEDIT2: Saw that OP has a flat company match and adjusted the math and conclusions accordinglyHuman: It is actually a straight 10. So even if I contribute nothing, they put in a full 10. Pretty cool, right?  <response>: You should pretend you have to contribute 10 to get the match. 