One of the financial moves I support is contributing to a retirement account such as the 401K. Especially if your employer offers a matching contribution, that’s free money to you. I’ve contributed to my retirement account since my first job and contributed the maximum amount. In 2021, the maximum contribution was $19,500. In 2022, the IRS set the 401K contribution limits to $20,500, an increase of $1,000. If you’re of the age 50 and over, you can add $6,500 as…
If you had multiple jobs and multiple employers and took advantage of a 401K (if they offered one), then you likely have multiple 401K accounts. First of all, just because they’re retirement accounts doesn’t mean that you should forget about them. If you’re in this situation, your old 401K probably wasn’t on your mind when you left for another job. If you had another job lined up, you might have been focusing on leaving your current job on a good…
Ever since I started working, it’s been said that social security won’t be around when I hit retirement age. They started emphasizing to contribute to a 401K or other retirement account so that you’re not stuck with anything. And that’s what I did from an early start, 20+ years ago. I wrote about maximizing 401K and why I did it. I wrote about the pros and cons from my experience. You might be asking whether my decision has paid off…
One of the beautiful ways of having that retirement cushion is to invest in your retirement through your 401K, IRA, Roth IRA, or TSP (401K version for federal employees). One of the benefits of enrolling in your employer’s 401K/TSP plan is that they typically contribute a percentage to it. I’ve had employers who match 3% of my contribution up to 5%. Why wouldn’t you want to enroll in a 401K/TSP plan? Besides the pre-tax benefits and employer additional contributions benefits,…
My first major financial decision…I maximized my 401K contributions from the beginning. 25 years ago I first started working full-time after college and it was an exciting time joining the workforce. On my first day on the job I was handed a bunch of paperwork to fill out. One of the pieces of paper I had to fill out was 401K contribution. What did I know about 401K? Nothing! Fortunately, I knew someone who did and he gave some advice….