How to fund a mountain of cash for retirement

— -- A million dollars isn't what it used to be. Depending on your personal needs, having a million dollars may — or may not — be enough to retire on. But it's a pretty good goal for most people.

Short of striking oil in the backyard, how are you going to get your $1 million retirement kitty?

We can't make any guarantees, but a solid savings strategy, combined with smart investing, low taxes and lower expenses, will get you a long way to your million-dollar retirement account.

Start with saving. Over the long term, most of the money in your retirement savings will be the money you socked away.

Duh, you say. True enough. But even though most people intend to save, many don't. A survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute found that 48% of those surveyed said the total value of their investments, excluding their home and pension, was less than $25,000. About 31% of workers over 55 said they had less than $25,000 in household savings.

The earlier you start, the less you have to save per month. If you have 10 years to retirement, you'll have to save $3,500 a month to have $1 million, assuming you earn 7% on your investments. If you start when you have 40 years to retirement, you need to save $400 a month.

You can start with less if you simply save a percentage of your salary every month. As your salary rises, so will the amount you save every year. For example, suppose you're 25, and your first job pays $35,000. You choose to save 5% of your salary every year, or about $146 a month. Assuming you get a 4% raise every year, and that you earn 7% on your investments, you'll have about $635,000 in your retirement savings in 40 years.

If you invest your savings in a 401(k) savings plan that offers a company match of, say, 50 cents on the dollar, you'll retire at 65 with $1.4 million.

Investing

The best way to get $1 million from the stock market, the saying goes, is to start with $2 million. And, in the short term, your odds of big gains in the stock market are modest at best. Over any one-year period since 1926, according to Ibbotson & Associates, a Chicago research firm, large-company stocks posted a gain 71% of the time. But they beat other investments, such as bonds and Treasury bills, just 20% of the time.