If I Started Saving for Retirement in 2026, I’d Do It in This Order

If I started saving for retirement in 2026, this is what I'd do differently. Here's the truth. Almost nobody tells you about retirement. In fact, many of us don't even think we're ever going to get there. We think we're going to live forever and be young and have all this money. But retirement is not about being rich. You do not need to pick the next big stock and you don't need to have some miracle to help get caught up. Nobody really covers the specifics we need to do to prepare for retirement financially, they just say, save, start an account, start saving, something will work out. Bye. I think we need more than that than just this blind goal of saving every dime we can. We need an order of operations, a tactical plan that's simple, and we want the tax code working for us instead of against us. Here's what actually decides who retires comfortably and who doesn't. It's not the income. A person making $70,000 a year with a smart strategy will beat a person making $170,000 $50,000 a year with no strategy every time. Most people aren't losing the retirement game because they're lazy. They're losing the retirement game because they save in the wrong accounts or in the wrong order, or they wait too long to start, obviously. But actually, there's a smart way to do it. Now, my name's Mark J. Kohler, CPA, attorney, and bestselling author, and also over age 50 myself, looking at retirement. And if I was talking to my old self, I would maybe do things a little differently. And if I was starting from scratch today in 2026, this is the exact framework I'd follow. Plain English, no jargon. Whether you've got $50 a month coming in or $5,000 a month. 6 parts. Why this works. The account order I'd use. What to actually invest in. How to keep winning with those investments. The moves most people never hear about. And finally, a blueprint for wherever you are right now. By the end, you'll understand what concrete steps you need to take to start building a retirement you're actually looking forward to, even if you're getting started a little late. So let's get into it. Part 1: Why this works. First, let's reframe what retirement even is, because this is why any of it really matters. Retirement is not an age. It's not 65. It's not 59 and a half. It's not a number your coworker threw out there at lunch. Retirement is the day your assets produce enough income that you no longer have to work for money if you don't want to. That's the finish line. Now, I love working. I think I'm going to keep working till the day I die. But for those of you that maybe want to work a little bit less, that's me. Retirement can give us that freedom. And the tool that gets you there is the most powerful force in the world of finance: compounding. Think of your first invested dollar as the hardest working employee you'll ever hire. It works 24 hours a day, never takes a vacation, never asks for a raise, and then it hires more employees. It produces more employees out of the money it earns. That's compounding. Here's what it looks like. Save $500 a month. Fairly reasonable for 30 years at an 8 to 10% average return, you're looking at somewhere around $1 million, most of which you never personally earned. That dollar was working for you and its offspring. It grew while you slept. Now here's the part a regular investing video can't tell you, and it's the reason I do what I do. Where the growth happens changes everything. In the wrong account, the government taxes your gain every step of the way. In the right account, that same growth can come out completely tax-free. The investments could be the same. It's just what bucket is the money growing in? Same money, same market, wildly different retirement. So that's the whole game. Get the snowball rolling early and make sure it rolls inside the right container. Which brings us to number 2, the order of investing. I love to cook. I'm in the kitchen every night. It relaxes me. And I'll tell you, you can have the right ingredient for a dish, but if you put it in in the wrong order, It's not going to turn out like the dish you hope for. Retirement money is the same. Here's the exact sequence I'd follow and why each step comes where it does. First, a starter cushion, an emergency account, rainy day fund. Before I invested aggressively or at all, I'd get 1 month of core expenses in cash, then build toward 3 to 6 months. Why first? Well, it's because every flat tire or medical bill forces you to raid your savings or run up credit cards. Your plans reset to zero. Your emergency fund isn't also your retirement plan. It protects you from stuff happening. Boring beats broken. And frankly, it's also there for immediate opportunities, not just immediate emergencies. We want to have that cushion available for a variety of reasons. Second, capture the match if you can. What that means is that if you or your spouse has an employer that offers a 401 and then a match. It can be 3 to 4% of your salary, but grab it immediately. That 4% of an $80,000 salary is $3,200 a year of free money. That's 100% return before you've even picked a single investment. This is a no-brainer. If there's a match, you take that match. Nothing in finance is that easy. Third, fund your Roth IRA while you can. I just talked about the 401 at work. Well, get the match, but then I want you to get out and go do your Roth IRA. And then if you're blessed enough to have more money to put into savings, then go back to the 401. Have your employer withhold a little bit more. But that Roth is a machine and we can have a Roth and a 401 at work. So get the match, jump over to the Roth, and then again, if you have the wherewithal, go back to the 401. I love the Roth accounts because you pay tax on the money going in, not the harvest. It grows tax-free and comes out tax-free. In 2026, you can put up to $7,500 into a Roth IRA. Plus an additional $1,100 if you're 50 or older. And most people will be wealthier in retirement than they expect. With Social Security, possible rental income, required distributions, they could be in a lower tax bracket later. But that's not always the case. Pay the lower tax now. Skip the unknown tax later. And two brand new 2026 rules to know: the 401 limit is $24,500 with an additional $8,000 catch-up for 50 and older folks and a super catch-up of $11,250 if you're between the ages of 60 and 63. But here's the big one starting in 2026. If you earned more than $150,000 last year, your catch-up contribution must go in as a Roth. The government already knows the Roth is better. A lot of people will trip over that, but honestly, it's a gift. The law is forcing high earners into the exact tax-free bucket I want them to be in anyway. Number 4, The HSA. Oh, if you qualify. This is so important in the lineup. With a high deductible health plan, the HSA is the only account the IRS lets you win on all three fronts. A deduction going in, tax-free growth, and tax-free withdrawals for medical costs. Immediately. You don't even have to wait to any age. In 2026, that's $4,400 for individuals, $8,750 for families or head of household. Pay small medical bills out of pocket. Leave the HSA invested and you've built a dedicated tax-free bucket for the biggest expense in retirement, healthcare. And fifth is the backfillings. Let's go back to the 401 that I said just a moment earlier. If you get the match and go over and do the Roth IRA and you have the wherewithal, you go back to the 401. And I want to say too, if anybody tells you you can't do a Roth IRA because you make too much money, They are wrong. There is a method called the backdoor Roth IRA. And my partner Matt Sorenson, who has written the bestselling book on self-directing IRAs and Roths and 401s— I've got other videos on this too— but he has an awesome video on the backdoor Roth that you can click here and go see. So there is an order to things and the order matters. Most people just save where it's easiest and they think, well, I'm saving, so I'm doing the right thing. No, no, no, no. The order is the difference. Back to our list of 6, part 3, what to actually invest in. Now, some of you may be thinking, Mark, you're not an investment advisor, and I'm not. I'm not going to get a commission of telling you what to buy or sell. That's not the point. Over and over again, what I see over 10,000 consultations, people freeze up or overthink or get into analysis paralysis. And so let me make it simple. The account or the container is what the investment goes in. That's the Roth. It's like the car trunk, you know, what is in your trunk? You don't want junk in your trunk. So your investments matter, but if it's not in the right vehicle, it turns into junk. So if I were starting over, I would not day trade or chase the coolest thing or gamble on what might be the next breakthrough invention. I'd just keep it simple with boring, proven investments, ETFs, simple target mutual funds that I can get this 8, 9, or 10%. Retirement isn't built on brilliance. It's built on consistency. And so start there. Don't feel like you've gotta pick the perfect stock or perfect investment. Just get saving and get into something that can generate those 8, 10%, or more. Then we're gonna get into crushing it with self-directing, another strategy. But start with the basics. If I knew nothing, I'd keep it to one broad U.S. fund, one international fund, maybe a bond or a price for my age, or one quality target date fund or ETF. All those things. You're doing funds that have a proven track record, not an individual stock. You can get fancier later once the foundation is built. Part 4, how to keep winning. So you're now doing the basics. The foundation is boring on purpose. You're going to be saving regularly. And what separates the people who actually get there is what they do repeatedly and keeping their eyes open. And I want to talk about real estate. Real estate has built more wealth in this country more than any other asset class. And real estate just doesn't mean rental property. It's buying your own home, but not overbuying too much home. Buying your home in the right area. Being careful with real estate can build so much equity. Like the time value of money and the compounding interest. You have real estate tax-free growth, that equity in real estate that has outperformed the stock market. The growth in the value of real estate over the last 40 years has outperformed the S&P 500. That's how real estate works. Now, that may mean buying your own building that you need for your business. If you're— have a small business and you're paying rent to someone else, if If possible, let's buy a building for your business. Do you have a lot of storage? Do you have a business where you rent a warehouse or a steel building? Let's buy storage units and quit paying rent to someone else and pay rent to ourself. And then that brings up rental property. Where are your kids going to college? Where do your parents live? Do your parents need to rent from you? Do you want to buy your, the home your parents live in and they pay rent back to you? Maybe. What about the home you just owned? Do you want to just sell it and buy another home or keep that home as a rental? A rental real estate portfolio, whether it's for your business, your personal investments, or even your, again, your primary residence, all of that can build so much wealth while you're doing that boring foundation. So you're still saving in the Roth, the 401 match, doing the HSA, everything I was just talking about. You're still doing that, but we're keeping our eyes open with real estate. Super powerful. Now, part 5, the moves most people never hear about. And this is where we go beyond the basic investing that we were talking about, the boring stuff, the ETFs, the mutual funds. You've got to do that to build up a snowball where you can now start doing what many people call Alternative investments. Using your solo 401, your IRA, your Roth, even your HSA to invest in alternative assets like real estate, private equity, new startups, gold, silver, private lending. There is so much out there as an opportunity for your retirement accounts to invest in what you know best, called self-directing. Many of these strategies we don't hear about in mainstream media because Wall Street wants you to buy stocks, bonds, mutual funds. ETFs and all those funds. Well, after that basic savings has been going on and you've got that foundation, now you can direct that foundation into what you know best. Now I want to clarify this. Step 5 is Step 5 for a reason. We don't come out of the gate with these more advanced investment strategies, alternative investments that could be argued as more complex. Well, it's because we've spent a number of years getting there. And like I said at the very beginning, if I was talking to my young Mark and I was starting over in 2026, these are the order of steps I would take and I would have been more thoughtful about my real estate investments. I would have been more consistent putting money into my Roth. I would have been doing all these things in this order for a reason. And done right, self-directing your retirement accounts can get you 10%, 15%, 20% or more return because you're investing outside of the stock market into these projects that you know better. Now, by the way, we have the Directed IRA Trust Company. You can get there at a link down below and start self-directing your Roth IRA or a Solo 401 or HSA and investing beyond Wall Street. If that's something that you're interested in, check it out. You will love it and it can again increase your returns dramatically. We specialize in setting up these self-directed retirement accounts so that you can invest in real estate, crypto, private deals, and so much more. There's a link in the description below to book a free 15-minute call and take control of your retirement today. Now, this brings us to part 6, the blueprint that brings it all together. It's a combination of really automating everything you're trying to do. It's staying consistent. With the plan that you have implemented. It's not panicking and staying on course because this is a get rich slow scheme, not a get rich quick scheme. And like I just said, automate everything because what's automatic gets done. What depends on motivation sometimes doesn't. I'd automate my 401 and that match I talk about, the Roth IRA, the HSA, putting away money quietly maxes out a Roth IRA. So I never have to negotiate with myself. It's automated. People spend what they see. Wealth builders save before they spend. And raise your savings rate every time your income rises. Let's not try to keep up with the Joneses and raise our lifestyle every time our income increases. Most people get a raise and upgrade that lifestyle. I do the opposite. I'd redirect a chunk of that increased revenue and income into retirement, into real estate, before he got used to spending it. And then as you start investing more creatively, that 8% turns into 15% or 20% or more. And that's just a start. Don't wait for the perfect moment. It only looks obvious in the rearview mirror. I'm hoping many of you that are younger than me, or maybe just a little younger than me, are seeing this clear as day and can see this future that they have right there before them. These 6 steps are real. And no matter what age you are, stop panicking. Get honest about spending. Get rid of some of the things you have around you that you don't need and use them as a start, an acorn, an impetus to start saving even faster. And use every tax-advantaged account and strategy you can. If you're self-employed, let's get the right entity in place. Think about the solo 401 as a possibility because the retirement game isn't won by the highest income or the highest IQ. It's won by the person with the best system that stayed consistent. So if I were starting retirement from scratch in 2026, that's exactly what I'd do. I wouldn't overcomplicate it. I wouldn't wait for the perfect conditions. I wouldn't chase flashy investments before the foundation was built. I'd use the right accounts in the right order with the right habits. That's how the real retirement wealth gets built. And when you're ready to go beyond the basic Wall Street menu and invest your retirement, and it's at a level where you can really start investing in things like real estate, private deals, notes, small businesses, check out Directed IRA. The link is in the description below. If you're ready to get started now, let's get going. And if this was helpful, please hit the like button, subscribe, turn on notifications so that you don't miss any future videos on building wealth, saving taxes, and living the American dream. I'm Mark J. Kohler. Thanks for being here. I'll see you in the next one.