I don't understand your implication that striving in a career endeavor requires that you spend all your income with nothing going to savings. If anything, healthy savings will allow you to take advantage of an unexpected opportunity, and/or lessen the impact of an unexpected obstacle. This 'backup plan' will also make it easier to take risks without having to worry as much about the potential for failure. In other words, savings provides you with options.
But that's in terms of general savings. For retirement more specifically, you should definitely start now if you can afford it, due to the effects of compound interest. Try playing around with an interest calculator[1] to see why. But perhaps the best reason is that once you're 40 and have had a few curve balls thrown at you, you'll appreciate that regardless of how things turned out, you'll have put yourself in a good place financially for the long-term.
For the record, I'm in my mid-20s myself, and across my Roth and my employer's SEP-IRA, around 20% of my income is going towards retirement (with other non-retirement savings on top of that). I've set up my direct deposit such that the Roth contributions are totally automatic. It just gets dumped into three index funds: US Stock, Intl Stock, and Bonds. I basically never need to think about the accounts except when rebalancing. It's nice.
But that's in terms of general savings. For retirement more specifically, you should definitely start now if you can afford it, due to the effects of compound interest. Try playing around with an interest calculator[1] to see why. But perhaps the best reason is that once you're 40 and have had a few curve balls thrown at you, you'll appreciate that regardless of how things turned out, you'll have put yourself in a good place financially for the long-term.
For the record, I'm in my mid-20s myself, and across my Roth and my employer's SEP-IRA, around 20% of my income is going towards retirement (with other non-retirement savings on top of that). I've set up my direct deposit such that the Roth contributions are totally automatic. It just gets dumped into three index funds: US Stock, Intl Stock, and Bonds. I basically never need to think about the accounts except when rebalancing. It's nice.
[1] Here's one: http://www.dinkytown.net/java/WaitCost.html