<prompt> Human: I am in my mid 20s and I work in a high stress field making a fairly low salary. This is temporary and I will likely earn much more as I move up in my field in the next five years or so. I can save about 4000 per year for my retirement in a Roth IRA as no 401K is available while l live very frugally. My bossadvisor suggests that I am crazy to be saving for retirement now and that I should use that money to increase my quality of life and focus on saving for retirement later when I am making significantly more. I can see the benefit of this, with a high stress job, the increased stress of living extremely frugally can be pressing; I have not gone on a decent vacation in years and I would love to travel but I know that would eat into annual my retirement contribution. My question is, is it really worth contributing this small amount now annually? Should I just hold off and wait until I am making significantly more likely 3x my current salary when I am in my early 30s? I want to enjoy my 20s but I also value the comfort of a financial cushion. I know I can do the math and calculate the interest earned here, I am just looking for more qualitative advice from people who may have been in this situation.EDIT: I make 31,000yr before taxes and I have no 401k match options. I also could likely make 3x or 4x my salary in the next 5 years I know thats still not crazy high but realistic. I work in research.  <response>: Boss does not get the power of compound interest. Ignore him. Seeding your retirement account in your 20s will likely make the difference between an OK retirement and a comfortable one. 