Individual responsibility and private savings for retirement are becoming increasingly important for the adequate financing of living standards in the third age. However, in order to invest in private forms of retirement savings, working age individuals should be sufficiently pension literate or informed. In this paper researchers examine the differences between pension literate and illiterate participants, as well as the link between pension (il)literacy and various types of private savings for the third age on a representative sample of active population in Croatia. Pension illiterate group makes more than a half of the active working population in Croatia. When compared to pension literate active population, they are statistically significantly different according to certain demographic characteristics, attitudes and beliefs, as well as behaviors and intentions towards savings for the old age. One of the most important findings is that the pension literacy is an important predictor of non-traditional types of savings, indicating that the pension literacy may represent a significant boost to private savings for retirement. In addition to pension literacy, a significant predictor of all types of private savings is the attitude towards a specific type of savings. This implies that raising measured elements of attitude, such as trust towards the specific type of savings for the third age and its perceived appropriateness, is another possible way to encourage private savings.