Lather, rinse, repeat.

I haven’t looked at the back of a shampoo bottle in years. (Now the front, I do look at, just to make sure I’m treating my locks to something designed for the color-enhanced head of hair.) But I do believe that at least some of them used to come with instructions that were more detailed than the simple “lather, rinse, repeat” guidelines. Which, come to think of it, really wouldn’t do the trick for someone who didn’t realize that, before you lathered, you had to a) wet your head and b) introduce some shampoo into the equation somehow. And don’t get me going on that “repeat”, a shameless pitch to get folks to use up their shampoo twice as fast they have to. Seriously, unless you’ve just completed an Iron Man race, or are at the hairdressers, who doubles up on the hair-washing process?

And unless you just dropped down from wherever like The Brother from Another Planet, who actually needs instructions for shampooing their hair?

Surely, this information is handed down parent to child and, failing that, by observing others at the gym – or during a shampoo commercial. (Say, that’s how it’s done!)

Into this category of duh-obvious I hasten to add the old Cool Whip ads in which patrons of the Tucker Inn implored Sarah Tucker to reveal the secret of her Pudding in a Cloud recipe.

Even the most kitchen-impaired among us should have been able to figure out that it was a plop of Cool Whip, into which you added a plop of pudding.

Then the other day, while wasting time trolling the business news for Pink Slip topics, I clicked through on an article on how to accelerate your retirement savings. Since the only methods I’ve been able to come up with have been playing the lottery and trying to figure out if there really is a way-back machine that would enable me to do a do-over. (Note to prior self: work only for companies where the options will be worth something. Let me qualify that: work only for companies where the options will be worth something that is above water.)

So I brought the article up.

The first suggestion?

Don’t limit your saving to your IRA/401K options:

If you're in a high enough income tax bracket, the solution may be simply to think outside of the fund. While there are limits on how much money you can contribute to a tax-favored qualified retirement plan, you can save as much as you want somewhere else.

"Somehow people have a tendency to believe that the only money they can have in retirement has to have the word IRA attached to it … and that's just not true," says Scott Cramer, president of Cramer & Rauchegger, a financial advisory firm in Winter Park, Fla. "If you have maxed out your IRAs and your 401(k)s, don't be afraid to put money into a savings account."

Okay, I realize that the Internet has a ginormous appetite for content, and that its maw must be fed round the clock. But “you can save as much as you want somewhere else”?  This is someone’s idea of advice? Surely, there can’t be all that many people – especially those in the vaunted “high enough income tax bracket”, which, we all know, ain’t all that high – who don’t realize that they can actually have savings that aren’t in an IRA?

I mean, there’s a difference between knowing and doing – as in, I knew I should have been more careful about the companies I worked for, but I was just so drawn to the loveable losers.

As for “save more” being the first up suggestion for how to save more for retirement.

Capital D-U-H to this bit of advice.

Needless to say, assuming that they hit us with their best shot, I took a pass on looking through the follow on suggestions.

But I can imagine what some of them might have been:

• Periodically look through your house for every place where you’ve ever tossed change. Don’t forget to look in coat and jacket pockets – you might even find a bill here and there. Take this money – it might actually amount to something real and tangible, like $48 – and put it in your IRA. Or in a – get this – savings account that has nothing explicitly to do with retirement savings.
• Distract the kids and raid their piggy banks. If you don’t have kids of your own, distract your friends’ kids when you’re visiting them. Don’t do anything too obvious, but a few bucks cadged here and there over the course of a year can add up to something real and tangible, etc. Yes, this is a generational wealth transfer, but where’d they get that money to begin with? If you’re the parent, they likely cadged it from you. If you’re “just” a friend, you probably stuck at least $5 worth of it in a birthday envelope at some point. Special note: that thing with the kitchen knife getting coins out of one of those little amber glass pigs really does work. Not that I’ve used this method on any unsuspecting kids – just sayin’.
• Hold a yard sale. In the spirit of caveat emptor, don’t label with Renoir puzzle “missing piece”. Go ahead and ask for the full two bucks, but be prepared to have it negotiated down to one. If you started with the “missing piece” news, you’d only get a quarter – max. Resist urge at the end of the day – a day during which you had to put up with complete strangers make fun of your taste in books, music, videos, and museum posters, but actually argue over who saw the tacky wedding-gift vase from Aunt Bertha first – to look at the pitiful amount of money in the cash box and say f it and order a pizza. Instead, deposit it in the bank. (Even though the interest rates will be equivalent, avoid depositing it your kid’s piggy bank. You never know who’s out there with a knife.)
• Walk city streets with your eyes trained on the sidewalk. While this used to be good urban practice just to avoid stepping in a dog mess, people are pretty good at picking up after their pooches these days. Now you’re looking for change. The average American will not stoop to pick up a penny. Or a nickel, even, for that matter. But you’re trying to beef up your retirement. So, with eyes on the prize, pick up every stray coin you spot when you’re out and about (unless it’s in the middle of the odd dog mess). Over the course of a year, this could add up to a dollar or two that you can easily add to your savings – be it IRA or non-tax exempt bank account.
• While you’ve got your eyes on the prize, follow only the “Take a Penny” mandate when you’re paying cash for something. To spare yourself some embarrassment, make a small show of looking through your change purse and pockets while muttering, “I know I have two pennies in there somewhere.” Trust me, the clerk will quickly become exasperated, as will the four people standing behind you in line, and hand you the two pennies from the dish next to the cash register. Don’t get greedy. It’s marginally acceptable – particularly if you’re trying to accelerate your savings – to help yourself to three cents, but scooping up four pennies is implicitly verboten.

I could go on, but you get the point. Those pennies saved today may look like pennies from heaven once you retire.

You heard it here!