An ex line chef as a financial guru? Next thing you know we will hear about your amazing ability to open locked trunks.....
Seriously, we started in mid 80's maxing out our 401ks and 403Bs, as mentioned before, the power of compounding over the years is amazing. We are just about ready to retire, I have already started my retirement, and we expect my wife to retire at the end of next year. We have had the funds in the Transamerica and Fidelity funds over the years, last year we consolidated all of them to Fidelity with the exception of a portion that had to remain in her current employers Transamerica account. Fidelity is our custodian, and Fisher Investments manages the funds. We are a bit conservative, but Fisher has done a great job for us over the last year. With no new cash in, and only their fees and a small monthly withdrawal we are taking, we are still doing better than either of the various funds we were in would have done. It's never too late to start, a few years of discipline and it will add up. Good luck