I am having an issue with how to set up my wife's retirement contribution. We are trying to put her entire paycheck into her 401k. Last year we were electing a set amount to go into her 401k (Which left her a paycheck for about $0.75) We got burned in December because she had an hour of unpaid time on her paycheck so she was not able to contribute the full amount by $50. So her employer withheld $0 instead of just putting the max amount that she could put in since she couldn't cover the elected amount.
There is an option to contribute 100% to the 401k but I am worried that this will cause the same issue because it will not be possible to contribute all of her pretax income because of FICA and health insurance. I just do not want it to contribute zero again this month because with the full contribution we are under a tax cliff and do not want to be over it because of this.
Has anyone had this issue before? Does electing to contribute 100% generally mean "Throw the max amount that is possible into the account"?
I would prefer not to ask her employer as my wife would need to call them and she generally tries to avoid doing these type of things! Thanks!
