The stock market and housing market crash, plus rising unemployment and harsh credit card terms, have made Americans aware that their financial futures are fragile. But out of the pain has come laudable behavior: People are thinking twice before spending on a whim, for example.

Now it's time to take it a step further: No matter your age, you probably need to save more for retirement, and you may need to invest more wisely.

Retirement sneaks up on people who wait to invest. And with government debt soaring, you may end up with less Social Security and Medicare, and perhaps higher taxes too.

Here's what to do, at the beginning of adulthood, and through the mid-career years.

— Early start puts you ahead.

A 22-year-old who invests $2,000 a year every year until retirement — or roughly $38.50 a week — would end up with about $611,000 by age 67, if he or she earns about 7 percent a year on average on the investments. That's not a lot of money if spread out over a long retirement, especially considering inflation. It would provide about $24,440 a year to live on, plus annual inflation adjustments.

For $40,000 a year, roughly a $1 million nest egg is necessary. But that would mean investing about $3,300 a year.

If you feel you can't afford to save much, start small — even at 1 percent of your salary — and increase it with every raise or windfall.

If you save nothing by your early 30s, instead of saving $3,300 you will have to stash about $6,500 to get close to $1 million. If it's your early 40s, it will take about $14,500 a year. To maximize your savings, put them into a 401(k) at work. That's where many employers provide free matching money. Say you make $30,000 a year, and your employer will match the first 3 percent of pay that you put into the 401(k). That's $900 a year from your employer, and if it goes into the 401(k) yearly and earns 7 percent, that free money will give you about $275,000 by retirement on top of your own savings. Experiment at https://401k.fidelity.com/public/content/401k/Tools/ContributionCalc.

And whenever you save in a 401(k), you also cut your current taxes.

To make most of this opportunity, consider investing about 70 to 80 percent of your 401(k) money in a Standard & Poor's 500 index mutual fund, and the rest in a diversified bond fund. That index fund is a stock investment and might strike you as overly risky after the huge decline the market just encountered.

But people in their 20s should do well over time. By combining 70 percent in the stock market and 30 percent in government bonds, an investor would have averaged an 8.9 percent return a year over the last 83 years, according to Ibbotson Associates.

When should you bypass a 401(k)? If you have no emergency fund, and are worried about losing your job, you should save for the possibility of a job loss in addition to retirement in a Roth individual retirement account. Money you put into such an account can be removed at any time without penalty. But if you are thinking of the Roth IRA as an emergency fund, invest it safely — perhaps in certificates of deposit at a bank, not in stocks or stock mutual funds.

— How to make up for lost time

Saving adequately for retirement should take precedence over saving for a child's college education. As a rule of thumb, if you save 10 percent of pay starting with your first job, you will be fine in retirement. Find out how you stand at ChooseToSave.org. Do the "ballpark estimate."

To maximize savings and shield them from taxes, put up to $16,500 a year in your 401(k) and an additional $5,000 in a Roth IRA. At age 50, you can put up to $22,000 a year into the 401(k) and $6,000 into the Roth, assuming you fall within the Roth income limits. Up to age 40, advisers typically suggest investing about 70 percent of your retirement money in stock mutual funds. If the downturn subjected you to more loss than you can stand, cut back to 65 percent or 60 percent.

By 50, having only 60 percent in stocks is considered prudent, although not immune from losses. If you were shocked by the downturn, put 50 percent in stock funds and 50 percent in bond funds. Although investors have lost as much as 24 percent in this 50-50 combination in a single year, they have never lost money over a 10-year period with such a portfolio, according to Ibbotson.

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