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Five small changes in retirement planning that get big results

Retirement planning often involves tweaking. These 5 tweaks will have a big impact.

If you鈥檝e ever run a聽聽to estimate how much you need to save, you know the numbers that come back can seem daunting. A recommended goal upward of $4 million is not uncommon.

When you鈥檙e a few decades and many, many聽dollars away from achieving that goal, giving up or delaying can seem聽like the easiest answer. But the earlier you can start saving, the better. Giving yourself a聽longer time horizon puts聽聽on your side, which means you can put less money away and still build a solid nest egg聽over time.

That鈥檚 the first step: Start saving today, with whatever you have. If you start with $100 and invest that each month at a 7% annual return, in 30 years you鈥檒l have more than $100,000.

But in all likelihood, you鈥檒l need and want more than that. Here are five ways to boost your efforts and reach your retirement goals:

1. Make gradual increases

Most financial advisors recommend saving at least 15% of your income, but if you鈥檙e not quite ready to do that yet, see if your 401(k) allows you to opt into auto-escalation. This feature slowly kicks your contribution percentage up a point or two every year. The benefit is that you鈥檙e slowly and steadily increasing the amount you put away in a way that is unlikely to hurt your budget 鈥� in fact, you might not even notice the change to your paycheck. (If you do, you can always decrease your contributions.) If your plan doesn鈥檛 offer this option, set a reminder on your calendar to manually bump up your contribution once a year.

Amount saved:聽For a 30-year-old with a $50,000 salary, raising retirement-plan contributions by just 1 percentage point each year (topping out at 15%) could mean a difference of over $600,000 at retirement, assuming a 7% annual return.

2. Bank a windfall

If your salary increases, that鈥檚 a great time to increase your retirement contributions. If you get an end-of-year bonus, put away half. As for your annual tax refund? The smartest move is to aim not to get one, as it鈥檚 effectively allowing the IRS to borrow your money throughout the year, interest-free, and pay you back the following April. Instead, use this聽to figure out how much should actually be pulled out of your paycheck for taxes. If you鈥檝e been overpaying, take that excess and turn it into a 401(k) contribution each month.

Amount saved:聽Investing an extra $2,500 each year from a salary increase, bonus, windfall or a combination of all three could add $370,000 to your savings over 35 years, assuming a 7% annual return.

3. Squirrel away savings

You鈥檒l find many valid tips out there for how to save money, from cutting out cable to using coupons to limiting takeout.

But it鈥檚 all too easy to spend the money you鈥檇 save by聽doing those things聽if you don鈥檛 immediately take action to get it into savings. When you call your cable company and get rid of a premium cable challen, immediately boost your retirement contributions by that $18 a month. If you get a discount on your聽, or your mortgage payment drops because of an escrow balance, or you聽, put the savings you realize into your retirement account.

Amount saved:聽Just saving that $18 monthly cable tab could add up to over $30,000 over 35 years, assuming a 7% annual return. That鈥檚 not a full retirement, but it鈥檚 certainly something.

4. Lower investment expenses

Expenses can have a huge impact on your retirement portfolio, particularly in a 401(k). 401(k)s generally have two main sources of fees: investment expenses and administrative costs, which employers often pass through to plan participants. You can鈥檛 do much聽about the latter, but the former is within your control: Select聽.

If your employer contributes matching dollars to your 401(k), contribute as much as you need to get the full match. Then consider switching your focus to an IRA (), which often has lower fees and a wider range of inexpensive investment options. Employees at smaller firms in particular would benefit from this: A Deloitte/Investment Company Institute聽聽showed that 401(k) fees can be as high as 1.4% at companies with fewer than 10 employees, compared with 0.6% at larger companies with more assets.

Amount saved:聽Over 35 years, the difference between a 1.4% fee and a 0.6% fee could eat up $200,000 in returns on an initial $100,000 investment.

5. Change your perspective

So much of saving for retirement is a mental game, and behavioral finance research suggests our brains aren鈥檛 wired to save for something that is so far away; we鈥檙e much more likely to prioritize the present.

It might help to reframe聽the way you view things, says Ellen Rogin, a financial planner and author of 鈥淧icture Your Prosperity: Smart Money Moves to Turn Your Vision Into Reality.鈥� She cites a piece of research in which one group of people was asked whether they could save 20% of their income; about half said yes. When a second group was asked if they could live on 80% of their income, 80% said yes.

鈥淥f course, to save 20% of your income is exactly the same as living on 80%, so these results don鈥檛 make any logical sense. But it makes intuitive sense because of the way many of us view money,鈥� Rogin says. To part with 20% of your cash flow feels like a loss; to live on 80% of your income is an adjustment, but it seems doable.

Amount saved:聽If you started with a $50,000 salary and consistently saved 20%, even if your salary never increased, you鈥檇 build more than $1.5 million over 35 years assuming a 7% average annual return. You鈥檒l also become accustomed to living on 80% of your pay, which will make the transition to a lower income in retirement less severe.

Arielle O鈥橲hea is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website.