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My husband and I got married 20 years ago. We were in our early 20s and enjoying the boom of the 1980s, easily scoring high-paying jobs after college. Drunk with success, we spent time in great restaurants, traveled to exotic locales every holiday and -- when it came to my wardrobe -- I always bought retail.

What we didn't spend haunts us to this day. We each worked for companies that offered generous 401(k) matching programs. Yet we didn't participate! We decided to keep the money rather than save it. We didn't really undertand what the 401(k) was, except that it was money we'd be charged for using unless we were old enough to retire. Retirement seemed an eternity away. Saving money for it seemed unnecesary. After all, we figured our careers were going so well, we wouldn't need some lame retirement savings plan down the road. Our future was so bright, as the 80s song went, we "had to wear shades."

Later, in our 30s, we wised up and participated to the max in 401(k) programs. But now, even as I watch the value of our 401(k) accounts dropping, we can't help but regret how much more we'd have had we not been so short-sighted. Looking back, I wish someone had advised us to participate in our 401(k) programs from the start -- or at the very least, made it an opt-out program. Would we have listened? I wonder.