The sharp-eyed regular reader will have noticed that most of my favourite music was made by men who are now safely into pensionable age. 

I was lucky enough to see one of these living legends do his thing at the O2 this week, where Neil Young wowed the crowd by belligerently refusing to play his hits and instead treating us to his latest 30-minute creations.

He did play one or two from his heyday however, and his claim that “it’s better to burn out than to fade away” got a massive response from the crowd.

The first time I read these lyrics was  in Kurt Cobain’s suicide note and, as a  grunge-obsessed 16 year old, I couldn’t  agree more: when you’re young it’s  all about burning out: hoping you  die before you get old and living fast,  dying young and leaving a good-looking  corpse. Fading away is boring.  But now I’m halfway through my thirties I have to admit that fading away is becoming increasingly attractive. Burning out is overrated, and is also a big part of why it is so hard to engage young people about pensions.

When you’re in your twenties it is almost impossible to think about what you will doing in 50 years’ time: it’s literally a lifetime away and there will be plenty of time to worry about getting old later.  Right now, you need to worry about enjoying yourself and dealing with more pressing concerns such as rent and paying off student fees. And let’s not even start on building up a mortgage deposit.

When you consider that a man reaching state retirement age this year will need £152,000 in his pension in order to by an annuity paying out just £5000 a year,  it doesn’t take an actuary to work out  that starting your pension early is vital  if you’re going to have an income of any  consequence in retirement.

The introduction of auto-enrolment will help get younger people saving, but more needs to be done. Basic financial education would be a start, but flexibility needs to be built into the system. New Zealand’s KiwiSaver model gets new entrants up and running by giving them a tax-free contribution of NZ$1,000.  After three years of contributing to the scheme, members are entitled to a first home deposit subsidy and can withdraw some of their savings to put towards the cost of that home.

Although population size and other factors mean these specific offers would probably be too expensive to transfer to the UK, they illustrate what is possible in terms engaging young people about saving for retirement.  Burning out at 27 might be rock ‘n’ roll, burning out at 65 is not.

The realities of fiscal security in old age rarely trouble the young. To a certain extent, that’s to be expected; there’s nothing rock ‘n’ roll about planning a pension and it’s a special kind of 21-year old who has their retirement mapped out.

With that in mind it’s a safe bet that when Neil Young wrote the immortal line: “It’s better to burn out/than to fade away”, the prospect of retirement was not weighing heavy on his mind. But reading through his new autobiography Waging Heavy Peace, I was surprised to discover the 67-year-old wrote the book mainly because he needed the money. “Writing is very convenient, has a low expense and is a great way to pass the time,” Young says with admirable candour. “I highly recommend it to any old rocker who is out of cash and doesn’t know what to do next.” You would think the man responsible for some of the greatest albums of the 70s – including Harvest, After the Gold Rush and On the Beach – would be fairly comfortable as he approached his retirement, but apparently the singer-songwriter has worked his way through most of the fortune amassed over his 50-yearold career.

Not for him the traditional trappings of a rock star excess however; instead, Young has exhausted his savings on vast, complex non-musical projects such as an electric car, a series of inventions for model railways and his music system to rival the iPod. While his pursuits might be nobler than those of many of his colleagues, they’ve still left Young with a lack of funds to see him comfortably (relatively speaking) through retirement. He’s certainly not alone, and as boring as it may sound to someone just starting out in life, we do need to plan for retirement earlier. Autoenrolment, finally introduced for millions of workers this week, will certainly go some way towards raising awareness, but at current contribution levels it won’t be enough for most.

What we really need to improve savings is the introduction of compulsory financial education in school. Why children are taught algebra but not basic personal finance is beyond me. Many students go through school without hearing the words “credit cards”, “loans” or “mortgages”, and if we are ever going to prevent future economic downturns, we need to educate children about money-related issues. While many young adults would agree it is better to burn out than to fade away, it’s amazing how appealing the latter option becomes the older you get. And if you are lucky enough to fade away, you’d better start planning for it early.