Many employers match what employees contribute to a 401(k) plan up to a certain limit. Well, Clark extended the same offer to his teen daughter about 4 years ago. He calls it "the daddy match" and he puts a dollar into her Roth account for every dollar of her pay she saves.

It's no secret that getting a teen to start saving early will help insure their financial security later in life. Clark loves pointing to a chart that shows a teen who starts saving at 15 and puts aside $2,000 for 7 years will have more than $1 million at 65. That's assuming a return on investment of about 8%, of course. Money has a strong ally in time. Most financial models show that your money doubles in value every 9 years.

Syndicated financial writer Umberto Cruz recently crunched the numbers and found that a 20 year old who puts $2,000 in a Roth for 10 years will have just under $500K at retirement time. And that's with never having to save again! If you wait until you're 30 and save at the same rate, you'll only have $370K at 65. So the message is clear: The earlier you start saving, the better off you'll be.

The same thinking applies to your car purchase. The Wall Street Journal reports that if you buy a Toyota Camry instead of a BMW and invest the money you saved, you'll have about $26K after 10 years. Do it all over again 10 years later and you'll have about $100K in 20 years. This is proof that an isolated decision today can make a huge difference down the road.

Clark is very impressed with young people who open a 401(k) when they first start a job. Years ago, few people even knew what a 401(k) was!

But a new study from Fidelity reveals that just under half of all 20somethings and 30somethings cash out their 401(k) accounts when they change jobs.

That's like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

As regular listeners know, retirement savings need time to grow. That idea is well illustrated in Clark's retirement chart.

Know that the money you cash out of your 401(k) gets hit with penalties of about 40%. So Clark's special challenge to younger people is for them not to cash out. Instead, think about rolling your money over to your new employer's 401(k) plan.

RIP-OFF ALERT: If you've spent a lifetime working for one employer and built up a sizeable nest egg, you don't want to be targeted by a 401(k) predator.

401(k) predators are those stock brokers or insurance companies that promise great wealth if you move your 401(k) from your ex-employer over to them.

Business Week recently did an investigation into the lives of those who made the transfer. In most cases, their life savings were destroyed.

One stock broker got $320,000 from a retired factory worker and reduced it to $57,000. The broker did so by running the money through bad investments with giant commissions. The factory worker had to come out of retirement and work as a school janitor for $9/hour to avoid impoverishment.

This is an extreme example, but so many people like this are profiled in Business Week. Clark was recently speaking to a man who took his retirement savings to a broker he knew socially. The result? An 80 percent loss of his money.

There are many fine, reliable, honest and decent people in the brokerage industry. The problem is that brokers don't have "fiduciary duty" to you. That means they're not required to put your interests first. Instead, they're allowed to put you in high-commission investments that are generally "suitable" for you and get away with it.

The Business Week report also shows that those free lunch and dinner seminars where they push trashy annuities are terrible rip-offs.

If you need some investment advice, Clark prefers that you seek out a fee-only financial planner. They don't earn any commission from steering you to a certain product. You simply pay them for their advice.

So often, Clark gives general "one size fits all" advice about your retirement savings. But FinancialEngines.com can be used to analyze your specific situation. This website takes a very granular look at your retirement plan. Using Monte Carlo simulation, it generates a worst case, best case and intermediate case scenario for your money down the road.

Meanwhile, FinancialEngines.com recently surveyed 1 million people to get a better idea of how we're planning for retirement. Unfortunately, 70% of us have our money fouled up in a 401(k) plan with too little or too much risk.

In addition, some 40% of us have huge money tied up in employer stock. Clark says that should be more like zero percent! But people trust the company they work for and take the path of least resistance when making investment decisions. The downside is there's great risk having all your eggs in one basket. If you think not investing in your company stock is disloyal, throw them 10% at the most and call it a day.

Diversification is the key. You have to spread your money out to lower your risk. A lot of people make the mistake of taking all their money and putting it into a stable fund or a guaranteed fund. Those options may sound like a sure thing, but they basically tread water.

Clark prefers that you have money in the Total Stock Market Index, where you own pieces of thousands of companies. Sure, it's not as "sexy" as putting it all into a single company and letting it ride. But investments should be about long-term security, not the dazzle factor.

Many employers match what employees contribute to a 401(k) plan up to a certain limit. Well, Clark extended the same offer to his teen daughter about 4 years ago. He calls it "the daddy match" and he puts a dollar into her Roth account for every dollar of her pay she saves.

It's no secret that getting a teen to start saving early will help insure their financial security later in life. Clark loves pointing to a chart that shows a teen who starts saving at 15 and puts aside $2,000 for 7 years will have more than $1 million at 65. That's assuming a return on investment of about 8%, of course. Money has a strong ally in time. Most financial models show that your money doubles in value every 9 years.

Syndicated financial writer Umberto Cruz recently crunched the numbers and found that a 20 year old who puts $2,000 in a Roth for 10 years will have just under $500K at retirement time. And that's with never having to save again! If you wait until you're 30 and save at the same rate, you'll only have $370K at 65. So the message is clear: The earlier you start saving, the better off you'll be.

The same thinking applies to your car purchase. The Wall Street Journal reports that if you buy a Toyota Camry instead of a BMW and invest the money you saved, you'll have about $26K after 10 years. Do it all over again 10 years later and you'll have about $100K in 20 years. This is proof that an isolated decision today can make a huge difference down the road.

Do you want a free pass to financial trouble? Try being among the more than 50 percent of Americans who does not have a will! In a surprising twist, Forbes recently revealed that 1 in 3 wealthy Americans doesn't have a will either. What's going on, people? Clark wants to guilt everyone into having a will. Did you know that if you have minor children and don't have a will, the state can take your kids away at the time of your death and decide who gets them? They could go to a stranger or a relative who can't get their life together. Likewise, the state can decide who gets your money if you die and don't have a will. It could go to a family member you don't like, while your spouse may only get 10 cents on the dollar.

If you made a will years ago, you may need to dust it off and update it. You can do this yourself if your financial situation isn't too complicated. You can also go to a site like LegalZoom.com or try the highly respected WillMaker software. But you should go to a specialist if you have substantial money to protect. Retirement savings really need close attention. The beneficiary designation on your 401(k) or IRA accounts will trump whatever you have in your will. So check those designations carefully! One final note: California may be the exception to the rule that living trusts are not useful and should be avoided. That's because the Golden State has a very corrupt probate system. Some lawyers have even been able to arrange guaranteed revenue for themselves as a percentage out of someone's estate. If you own real estate in California and live elsewhere, you may want to hold it in a trust to avoid these corrupt probate courts.

Did you know that half of all American families haven't saved for retirement? Of those who have, 25 percent have stockpiled living expenses for one year of retirement. The problem is that we have not adjusted to the changes in retirement savings since Social Security is weakening and employer-provided pensions are going away. The average Social Security benefit is $11,000/year. Very few people can live on that alone. So the bulk of retirement savings has got to come from you. Over the last year, employers gained the right to automatically enroll you in a 401(k) plan and even step up your contributions every year. Laura Tyson, the former chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, recently wrote in a Wall Street Journal editorial that someone forced by their employer into a 401(k) plan will save an additional $200,000 to spend in retirement. Meanwhile, 75 million adults work for companies with no retirement plan at all. Of those millions, only one in 10 saves for retirement. But Clark thinks we need to move away from depending on the government to provide for our retirement. Congress is planning to make small employers establish an IRA auto-deduction policy for their employees. That way the employees of small businesses will automatically be saving for retirement. The bottom line is that we need to be more self-reliant. Clark believes that having the discipline to save for retirement builds the character of our country.

More than 70 million Americans have no option for saving for retirement at work, according to The Los Angeles Times. And what happens when we don't have options? We don't do anything about it. One reason is inertia. People just can't get motivated to do things on their own -- so they get stuck. But another reason is because all of the plans can be quite confusing. Clark calls it "Alphabet Soup." The good news is that you can now set up an automatic draft program to fund a Roth IRA. TIAA-CREF and Vanguard have great plans. So, set it up and then you can forget all about it. Just make sure it becomes automatic for you.