40 is absolutely when you should be thinking about retirement hence not having to work until the day you die. (jeez I'm starting to sound like my mom, but dammit she was right!)

Most of the comments on this thread ignite some of my fears and thoughts I have on retirement. "Haven't thought about retirement", "I'll probably work until I'm 70" Holy crap! I'm 38 and contribute a significant amount of my paycheck to retirement. I want to retire as early as possible. I mean work is great but not working sounds better. I work at a small agency now and I don't want to go into management. I think about this a lot and honestly part of my wanting to retire early is I can't imaging being a designer when I'm old. I remember back at art school having some old professors. One of them constantly told us about his ulcer. The other brought in a packaging proof (made in quark express ha!) that he screwed up, got the sides mixed up. The lesson: "kids, mistakes happen" but honestly I think it was because learning quark was such a stretch for him.

Anyway, unfortunately our industry is considered a young industry. If you're not a management type person there aren't tons of options, or maybe its just a matter of not letting the association or the word young to only mean innovative & fresh get to you and just keep chugging along the best you can.