Author Topic: $31,304 saved in 50 working days  (Read 8643 times)

AdiposeFinn

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$31,304 saved in 50 working days
« on: March 08, 2016, 06:41:00 PM »
I heard the Mad FIentist talking about maxing out his 401K (or equivalent) contribution at 100%. Although I haven't figured out how it is possible to contribute 100% of your paycheck to your 401K because of insurance deductions, etc., I figured I would give it a try.

Also, the trend in the high tech industry is to match 50% of all contributions. It is basically $9000 of free money per year if you contribute the maximum of $18,000 in your 401K (2016).

Naively, I set my max contribution to 75% of my pay which is the maximum allowed on the Fidelity website. It didn't affect my next paycheck so I punched the numbers into a spreadsheet and calculated that my paycheck would actually be negative at that rate. Now I have the 401K contribution rate set at 69% which after the 15% ESSP contribution leaves me with a whopping $32 in net pay.

Between the 401K, the match and ESPP I will have saved $31,304 in 50 working days. It really helps that 3 days are holidays, otherwise I would need to work 53 days for the same savings :).

After that I'll keep plugging away saving. Initially, I calculated that I would save just a hair under $100K for the year but I think $95K may be a bit more reasonable.

=== Update===

To be more realistic, I think I should take expenses out of my number because I am not awesome enough to live on $64/month. Also, some stock grants vested so I'll add those in too.

Stock grants: $1749 (roughly at today's market price)
Expenses: $2400/month (I don't have the actual available right now so this is slightly high to be conservative)
Expenses total for time period: $4199

Total saved in 50 working days: $27,105

« Last Edit: March 11, 2016, 01:01:07 PM by AdiposeFinn »

MrDelane

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Re: $31,304 saved in 50 working days
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2016, 06:43:56 PM »
Wow.
That's fantastic.
Congratulations! 


Ed Mills

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Re: $31,304 saved in 50 working days
« Reply #2 on: March 11, 2016, 08:45:24 AM »
Wow, nicely done!  It sure is a lot easier to go to work when you see your bottom line growing.  We're also in crazy front-loading mode these days:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-dw4cxhuCBdemxzempETnlFT1E/view?usp=sharing

Keep it up and good luck.  Ed

AdiposeFinn

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Re: $31,304 saved in 50 working days
« Reply #3 on: March 11, 2016, 01:08:04 PM »
Congratulations!

Thanks Mr. Delane!

Wow, nicely done!  It sure is a lot easier to go to work when you see your bottom line growing.  We're also in crazy front-loading mode these days:

That's badass; net pay of $.19!

Try not to spend it all at once.

Jack

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MVal

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Re: $31,304 saved in 50 working days
« Reply #5 on: March 11, 2016, 01:38:14 PM »
$0.19 paycheck, hahaha! I'm also rolling with the 2016 front loading and I've been "living" on $70 paychecks so far. End of first quarter I'm going back to a more "normal" contribution level of about 30% so I can maintain my employer match the rest of the year, but putting the maximum allowed contribution by my employer of 80% for a few months has been amazing.

couponvan

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Re: $31,304 saved in 50 working days
« Reply #6 on: March 11, 2016, 06:50:22 PM »
And I thought I was good at 40%!  Great work. 

Dicey

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Re: $31,304 saved in 50 working days
« Reply #7 on: March 12, 2016, 02:02:21 AM »
AF, this is badass indeed, but you might run your plan by your HR Dept to verify that you're going to be matched as you anticipate. You see, that "up to 50%"" could be a stumbling block because you are actually exceeding 50% right now.  The system may be set up so that it doesn't match over 50% of your earnings per pay period. Please check and report back. You may need to modify your plan to make sure you're not shooting yourself in the foot.

human

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Re: $31,304 saved in 50 working days
« Reply #8 on: March 12, 2016, 05:25:57 AM »
If you are putting 9k and they are putting 9k in the 401k isn't that a 100% match? Am I missing something?

randymarsh

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Re: $31,304 saved in 50 working days
« Reply #9 on: March 12, 2016, 02:53:01 PM »
If you are putting 9k and they are putting 9k in the 401k isn't that a 100% match? Am I missing something?

It would be, but OP is putting in 18K and getting 9K.

Heckler

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Re: $31,304 saved in 50 working days
« Reply #10 on: March 13, 2016, 11:46:55 AM »
Wow, that is badass.  Mint was just congratulating us for spending $19k in Feb/March on Financial. 

AdiposeFinn

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Re: $31,304 saved in 50 working days
« Reply #11 on: March 14, 2016, 01:15:03 PM »
AF, this is badass indeed, but you might run your plan by your HR Dept to verify that you're going to be matched as you anticipate. You see, that "up to 50%"" could be a stumbling block because you are actually exceeding 50% right now.  The system may be set up so that it doesn't match over 50% of your earnings per pay period. Please check and report back. You may need to modify your plan to make sure you're not shooting yourself in the foot.

Everything, looks correct. They are matching 50% but it doesn't matter if you front-load your contributions. I even logged into Fidelity and the number checked out there as well. If this wasn't the case I would have filed a class-action lawsuit this morning :)

Dicey

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Re: $31,304 saved in 50 working days
« Reply #12 on: March 15, 2016, 12:45:30 AM »
AF, this is badass indeed, but you might run your plan by your HR Dept to verify that you're going to be matched as you anticipate. You see, that "up to 50%"" could be a stumbling block because you are actually exceeding 50% right now.  The system may be set up so that it doesn't match over 50% of your earnings per pay period. Please check and report back. You may need to modify your plan to make sure you're not shooting yourself in the foot.

Everything, looks correct. They are matching 50% but it doesn't matter if you front-load your contributions. I even logged into Fidelity and the number checked out there as well. If this wasn't the case I would have filed a class-action lawsuit this morning :)
Looks like yours is better than mine was. The problem with the lawsuit approach is that it's their plan, their rules. By participating in their program,  you agree to their rules, like 'em or not. I mentioned it because I got stung by this. IIRC, it was set up so that contributions were matched to a specific limit per pay period, so front-loading or catching up were virtually impossible.  Asshats. Yet another reason FIRE rocks.

AdiposeFinn

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Re: $31,304 saved in 50 working days
« Reply #13 on: March 18, 2016, 06:13:38 PM »
AF, this is badass indeed, but you might run your plan by your HR Dept to verify that you're going to be matched as you anticipate. You see, that "up to 50%"" could be a stumbling block because you are actually exceeding 50% right now.  The system may be set up so that it doesn't match over 50% of your earnings per pay period. Please check and report back. You may need to modify your plan to make sure you're not shooting yourself in the foot.

Everything, looks correct. They are matching 50% but it doesn't matter if you front-load your contributions. I even logged into Fidelity and the number checked out there as well. If this wasn't the case I would have filed a class-action lawsuit this morning :)
Looks like yours is better than mine was. The problem with the lawsuit approach is that it's their plan, their rules. By participating in their program,  you agree to their rules, like 'em or not. I mentioned it because I got stung by this. IIRC, it was set up so that contributions were matched to a specific limit per pay period, so front-loading or catching up were virtually impossible.  Asshats. Yet another reason FIRE rocks.

I was just kidding about a lawsuit. However, I consider myself good at reading and from what I read of this years new plan they are going to match 50% without any silly restrictions and if they didn't live up to their end of the deal then there would be some explaining to do.

Sorry to hear about your plan that isn't quite FI friendly. You would think that they would want to encourage savings. There are probably so few people like you who would take advantage of it that it wouldn't affect the cost too much.

Dicey

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Re: $31,304 saved in 50 working days
« Reply #14 on: March 18, 2016, 08:46:44 PM »
AF, this is badass indeed, but you might run your plan by your HR Dept to verify that you're going to be matched as you anticipate. You see, that "up to 50%"" could be a stumbling block because you are actually exceeding 50% right now.  The system may be set up so that it doesn't match over 50% of your earnings per pay period. Please check and report back. You may need to modify your plan to make sure you're not shooting yourself in the foot.

Everything, looks correct. They are matching 50% but it doesn't matter if you front-load your contributions. I even logged into Fidelity and the number checked out there as well. If this wasn't the case I would have filed a class-action lawsuit this morning :)
Looks like yours is better than mine was. The problem with the lawsuit approach is that it's their plan, their rules. By participating in their program,  you agree to their rules, like 'em or not. I mentioned it because I got stung by this. IIRC, it was set up so that contributions were matched to a specific limit per pay period, so front-loading or catching up were virtually impossible.  Asshats. Yet another reason FIRE rocks.

I was just kidding about a lawsuit. However, I consider myself good at reading and from what I read of this years new plan they are going to match 50% without any silly restrictions and if they didn't live up to their end of the deal then there would be some explaining to do.

Sorry to hear about your plan that isn't quite FI friendly. You would think that they would want to encourage savings. There are probably so few people like you who would take advantage of it that it wouldn't affect the cost too much.
What they wanted, in classic MegaCorp fashion, was to appear more generous than they actually were. The plan was structured to allow the bigwigs every possiblle advantage. To appease the IRS, they had to throw the underlings a bone in certain situations. They did so as grudgingly as was legally possible. Since most employees are clueless about saving for retirement, very few realized what they were up to. Fortunately, they and their plan are long gone, as I retired in 2012 and yanked my money out of there as fast as possible. Buh-bye, boys.
An example springs to mind: They said the 50% match was up to 6%, but in reality it was something like 50% on the first 4% and 25% on the next 2%, which is not the same, but most folks just didn't get that. I don't remember the exact details,  because I've completed my post-FIRE detox and moved happily on.

human

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Re: $31,304 saved in 50 working days
« Reply #15 on: March 24, 2016, 08:50:43 PM »
If you are putting 9k and they are putting 9k in the 401k isn't that a 100% match? Am I missing something?

It would be, but OP is putting in 18K and getting 9K.

Ha! I thought a 401k was like an rrsp with a max of 18k and then just checked the max rrsp is actually 25,  I thought it was 18k. I have a pension adjustment that brings it down by a lot.  .

AdiposeFinn

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Re: $31,304 saved in 50 working days
« Reply #16 on: April 03, 2016, 09:58:05 PM »
Achieved. Not exactly 50 working days but I didn't have the contribution rate dialed in at the beginning of the year.