Mike the advice I gave my son with the business is: "The harder you work the luckier you get." At my age there is little choice what to do to maintain your standard of living other than investing. The main thing is start early as you can on that nest egg. I was no model saver. The government forced me to shelter some income or give it to them in taxes. Unfortunatly after short years of congress monkeying with that until they destroyed it. The perfect retirement plans went poof. I was forced to put what I had gained into an IRA where it is limited to slow growth investing.
Good luck with where Congress is headed next unless we throw the bums out.