401(k) fixes for all age groups

— -- Your nest egg isn't just cracked, it's unrecognizable, crushed by a market as ruthless as a 4-year-old on a Big Wheel. Can you put it back together in time for retirement?

Unless you have a pension or expect to inherit a lot of money, you don't have much choice. But the outlook for your savings probably isn't as bad as you think. A recent study by Financial Engines, a company that provides advice to retirement-plan participants, found that investors with as few as five years until retirement can recover their 2008 losses by making modest increases in savings and working two or three more years. Young investors, meanwhile, have much to gain, because they're years from retirement and are able to invest at bargain-basement prices.

Here's a look at how investors in different age groups can rehabilitate their 401(k) plans:

Gen Y: People born from 1982 through the early 2000s

Gen X: Those born from 1965 through 1981

Boomers: Those born from 1946 through 1964

Gen Y: The 'buy low' advice really works for you

You can afford to be bold because you don't have much to lose, Brett Hammond, chief investment strategist for TIAA-CREF, says of Generation Y— people born from 1982 through the early 2000s.

"The day you start working, the market could just tank and you don't care," Hammond says. "You've got nothing in it. You love for the market to go down because you can buy at the bottom."

That's what happened to Kate Jacobus, 24, a marketing associate for Intimacy Bra Fit Stylists in Atlanta. She started investing in her employer's 401(k) plan in July 2008. Her portfolio has since risen more than 17%. When you're young, she says, "There's nowhere to go but up."