401k maxed out for the year!!!

[AlanStache]

Just learned that I maxed out the 401k last pay period!! The way it is done I will still get the company match for the remainder of the year but nothing will be taken out from my top line.  All that much more to pile into the taxable accounts.

As far as what gets into my checking it is like working 40hrs but being paid as if I worked 50!  Damn it is a good thing I am not a shopper and wont just blow the extra cash.

Good things can happen on a Monday morning!

[footenote]

Congratulations, Badass Alan! IMO, it is the height of Mustachian luxury to have both  401k/IRA and already-taxed staches.

[Frankies Girl]

Congrats! That's awesome!!

[fmzip]

Congrats!

My new wife and I will be hitting the max in our next checks as well.

She's bummed out that she's turning 50 next year, I'm excited for additional $5500 catch up provision for next years 401K! To think that we put $35K into the 401K's plus her company match and profit sharing, I thought we were doing well. Unfortunately, we are nowhere near the 50% savings mark.

So much to learn still.....:)

[AlanStache]

thanks all.  still feels good a day latter.

I have half lucked into an over 50% savings rate, good income (engineer like everyone else here...) no kids, bought a condo that was much less than I could have qualified for and have been to cheap for a long time now to want a car payment.  The big bits of fat remaining are centered around moving closer to work and that is a non-starter with family and gf.  Working closer to home is probably not going to happen either (am very specialized with great company).  But there are always smaller things that will pay off in the long run.

[clutchy]

excellent!

this will be me next year.  I changed my withholdings about a month ago to go from 12% to 25%.  Maxxing will occur next year.

[Mazzinator]

Sweet!!!

We're on par with maxing my husbands out this year, despite opening it in May, and not contributing the max percentage until a few months ago.. It feels fantastic!!

Congrats!!!

[rocketman48097]

Be careful, I have over funded these accounts and now wish I would have put less in them because I am looking to early retire and notice most of my investments are locked up in tax free accounts until at least 55.  I am 37.  Something to think about, but congrats for maxing this out IF your old age retirement isn't fully funded yet.  Mine is, so I am now only doing the match and putting the rest in a taxable PG stock account instead.  (I am in the 15% bracket so dividends and cap gains are taxed at 0% for me, so it didn't seem to make sense for me to lock this money up in a Roth IRA)

[AlanStache]

Yes I am probably most of a decade away from ER that will be in my early 40's.  Lots of unknowns at this point but I am aware of the 'problem' of putting to much in tax deferred accounts and not having easily accessible funds. 

We all should probably do the math once a year to check what the unaided growth of our 401k will be till 55 so we know when to drop to the min-match value and do all we can in our taxable accounts.

[dandarc]

Be careful, I have over funded these accounts and now wish I would have put less in them because I am looking to early retire and notice most of my investments are locked up in tax free accounts until at least 55.  I am 37.  Something to think about, but congrats for maxing this out IF your old age retirement isn't fully funded yet.  Mine is, so I am now only doing the match and putting the rest in a taxable PG stock account instead.  (I am in the 15% bracket so dividends and cap gains are taxed at 0% for me, so it didn't seem to make sense for me to lock this money up in a Roth IRA)

The Roth IRA is a valuable tool for getting to your retirement account money, even if you are not saving any taxes with it - see the Roth Pipeline thread here.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/help-me-understand-the-roth-conversion-pipeline-idea-and-its-benefits/

[rocketman48097]

Dandarc,

Roth's have limits.  My spouse and I have a combined over 123k in these accounts.  You can only withdraw principle tax free, and if we both do 11k per year, that might take us 5 or 6 years to fund one year of early retirement, at our current over spending.  Roth's alone won't get us to the promised land, which is why we stopped funding them and switched to a taxable account instead, which ironically, we pay 0 taxes on (I also live in a state that doesn't tax capgains and only taxes dividends over $2500 per year, which I haven't hit yet in the taxable account).