How many people max out BOTH the 401k and 457(B)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not 457, but max out my 401k and Mega Roth. 24,500 401k +10k employer match +34,500 Mega Roth. Total annual contributions $69,000. My DH does 401k, plus his 8k roth catch up. RMDs will kill us.

Same with us, plus we max HSA and don't spend it. We've been maxing the federal limit for a decade. Both late 30s with 3.8M in combined retirement funds. I don't know what we're going to do with it all, but we keep maxing it every year since it seems like leaving money on the table not to.

Dear Simpleton:

Thank you for so blatantly revealing your stupidity. It is mathematically impossible to have accumulated such an amount in retirement savings by your late 30s even across four separate 401k, 403b, 457, or Roth accounts and with employer matching. You’re not even smart enough to provide improbable numbers.

Even if only the spirit of your post is true, this strategy makes you look like a total fool. You’re either so dumb that you can’t figure out how to balance near-term spending with long-term investing or so indolent that you’re hoarding extreme amounts of money to retire early and escape a job for which you’re clearly not a qualified fit.

It’s all about life choices. Perhaps in your next incarnation, you’ll roll the dice more favorably. Sigh.

I’m not that poster (i’m much older) but my DHs company years ago was private and went public and did a very generous pre ipo stock grant as compensation when he was first hired. we never rolled over that account and it has gone up 7 figures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not 457, but max out my 401k and Mega Roth. 24,500 401k +10k employer match +34,500 Mega Roth. Total annual contributions $69,000. My DH does 401k, plus his 8k roth catch up. RMDs will kill us.

Same with us, plus we max HSA and don't spend it. We've been maxing the federal limit for a decade. Both late 30s with 3.8M in combined retirement funds. I don't know what we're going to do with it all, but we keep maxing it every year since it seems like leaving money on the table not to.

Dear Simpleton:

Thank you for so blatantly revealing your stupidity. It is mathematically impossible to have accumulated such an amount in retirement savings by your late 30s even across four separate 401k, 403b, 457, or Roth accounts and with employer matching. You’re not even smart enough to provide improbable numbers.

Even if only the spirit of your post is true, this strategy makes you look like a total fool. You’re either so dumb that you can’t figure out how to balance near-term spending with long-term investing or so indolent that you’re hoarding extreme amounts of money to retire early and escape a job for which you’re clearly not a qualified fit.

It’s all about life choices. Perhaps in your next incarnation, you’ll roll the dice more favorably. Sigh.

I’m not that poster (i’m much older) but my DHs company years ago was private and went public and did a very generous pre ipo stock grant as compensation when he was first hired. we never rolled over that account and it has gone up 7 figures.

Yawn

[Anonymous]

I came to a very quick conclusion long ago that most posts on DCUM especially in this particular forum spouting HHI and NW are complete BS. It’s still good though for entertainment and an occasional good idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not 457, but max out my 401k and Mega Roth. 24,500 401k +10k employer match +34,500 Mega Roth. Total annual contributions $69,000. My DH does 401k, plus his 8k roth catch up. RMDs will kill us.

Same with us, plus we max HSA and don't spend it. We've been maxing the federal limit for a decade. Both late 30s with 3.8M in combined retirement funds. I don't know what we're going to do with it all, but we keep maxing it every year since it seems like leaving money on the table not to.

Dear Simpleton:

Thank you for so blatantly revealing your stupidity. It is mathematically impossible to have accumulated such an amount in retirement savings by your late 30s even across four separate 401k, 403b, 457, or Roth accounts and with employer matching. You’re not even smart enough to provide improbable numbers.

Even if only the spirit of your post is true, this strategy makes you look like a total fool. You’re either so dumb that you can’t figure out how to balance near-term spending with long-term investing or so indolent that you’re hoarding extreme amounts of money to retire early and escape a job for which you’re clearly not a qualified fit.

It’s all about life choices. Perhaps in your next incarnation, you’ll roll the dice more favorably. Sigh.

I disagree. My spouse and I are early 40s and our 401Ks (both regular 401K and Roth 402K) & Roth IRAs are worth well over $5.5M. We maxed out contributions every year we would when we started working.
It’s called understanding what’s going on around you and making good investment choices based on that understanding. Sorry you suck at investing PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Another consideration for some people may be that Medicare Part B premiums are based on your income. If you are pulling out high RMDs (which you are forced to do), you will have a high income in retirement. It may be that you saved money on your kid's college, but you may be paying it back to the government in the form of Medicare premiums. Of course who knows what will happen with healthcare in this country. It's a roll of the dice. You might need to spend your own money on healthcare in the future.

You're referring to IRMAA surcharges. They are calculated based on a 2-year look back on your income. So when you turn 65 and go on Medicare, SSA will look at your income for the tax year when you were 63. And yes, RMDs when you turn 73 (or 75) can bump you into the top IRMAA brackets. And IRMAA is like a tax cliff, you go $1 over into the higher IRMAA bracket and you get charged the IRMAA premium for that higher bracket (it's not a last dollar marginal tax like income taxes).

What do you plan your spend to be in retirement? We are planning 500k a year. We also have significant taxable accounts so there is no chance we would ever be in a lower bracket.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have access to a 457(f), so can’t possibly max it out (allows up to 100% of salary), but we do put about 10% into it, after maxing out 401(k)s with catch up. We are less than thrilled about the changes to catch up contributions for high earners, but hey, cool, now we have Roth accounts, too, right?

Wow. Eat the mf'in rich!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not 457, but max out my 401k and Mega Roth. 24,500 401k +10k employer match +34,500 Mega Roth. Total annual contributions $69,000. My DH does 401k, plus his 8k roth catch up. RMDs will kill us.

Same with us, plus we max HSA and don't spend it. We've been maxing the federal limit for a decade. Both late 30s with 3.8M in combined retirement funds. I don't know what we're going to do with it all, but we keep maxing it every year since it seems like leaving money on the table not to.

Dear Simpleton:

Thank you for so blatantly revealing your stupidity. It is mathematically impossible to have accumulated such an amount in retirement savings by your late 30s even across four separate 401k, 403b, 457, or Roth accounts and with employer matching. You’re not even smart enough to provide improbable numbers.

Even if only the spirit of your post is true, this strategy makes you look like a total fool. You’re either so dumb that you can’t figure out how to balance near-term spending with long-term investing or so indolent that you’re hoarding extreme amounts of money to retire early and escape a job for which you’re clearly not a qualified fit.

It’s all about life choices. Perhaps in your next incarnation, you’ll roll the dice more favorably. Sigh.

I disagree. My spouse and I are early 40s and our 401Ks (both regular 401K and Roth 402K) & Roth IRAs are worth well over $5.5M. We maxed out contributions every year we would when we started working.
It’s called understanding what’s going on around you and making good investment choices based on that understanding. Sorry you suck at investing PP.

Just curious, what does that actually mean? Are you beating the stock market?

[Anonymous]

I don’t have a 457b, only 401k and Roth IRA and taxable. But my aim this year is to max out both retirement accounts and continue adding to taxable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not 457, but max out my 401k and Mega Roth. 24,500 401k +10k employer match +34,500 Mega Roth. Total annual contributions $69,000. My DH does 401k, plus his 8k roth catch up. RMDs will kill us.

Same with us, plus we max HSA and don't spend it. We've been maxing the federal limit for a decade. Both late 30s with 3.8M in combined retirement funds. I don't know what we're going to do with it all, but we keep maxing it every year since it seems like leaving money on the table not to.

Dear Simpleton:

Thank you for so blatantly revealing your stupidity. It is mathematically impossible to have accumulated such an amount in retirement savings by your late 30s even across four separate 401k, 403b, 457, or Roth accounts and with employer matching. You’re not even smart enough to provide improbable numbers.

Even if only the spirit of your post is true, this strategy makes you look like a total fool. You’re either so dumb that you can’t figure out how to balance near-term spending with long-term investing or so indolent that you’re hoarding extreme amounts of money to retire early and escape a job for which you’re clearly not a qualified fit.

It’s all about life choices. Perhaps in your next incarnation, you’ll roll the dice more favorably. Sigh.

I disagree. My spouse and I are early 40s and our 401Ks (both regular 401K and Roth 402K) & Roth IRAs are worth well over $5.5M. We maxed out contributions every year we would when we started working.
It’s called understanding what’s going on around you and making good investment choices based on that understanding. Sorry you suck at investing PP.

It actually doesn’t sound that impressive; rather you are extremely privileged that both of your could contribute $45.6K a year at 22:

A 40-year-old who maxed all retirement vehicles (including mega backdoor Roth) from 22–40 would need roughly an 8.5–8.7% annual return to reach $2.75 million.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not 457, but max out my 401k and Mega Roth. 24,500 401k +10k employer match +34,500 Mega Roth. Total annual contributions $69,000. My DH does 401k, plus his 8k roth catch up. RMDs will kill us.

Same with us, plus we max HSA and don't spend it. We've been maxing the federal limit for a decade. Both late 30s with 3.8M in combined retirement funds. I don't know what we're going to do with it all, but we keep maxing it every year since it seems like leaving money on the table not to.

Dear Simpleton:

Thank you for so blatantly revealing your stupidity. It is mathematically impossible to have accumulated such an amount in retirement savings by your late 30s even across four separate 401k, 403b, 457, or Roth accounts and with employer matching. You’re not even smart enough to provide improbable numbers.

Even if only the spirit of your post is true, this strategy makes you look like a total fool. You’re either so dumb that you can’t figure out how to balance near-term spending with long-term investing or so indolent that you’re hoarding extreme amounts of money to retire early and escape a job for which you’re clearly not a qualified fit.

It’s all about life choices. Perhaps in your next incarnation, you’ll roll the dice more favorably. Sigh.

I disagree. My spouse and I are early 40s and our 401Ks (both regular 401K and Roth 402K) & Roth IRAs are worth well over $5.5M. We maxed out contributions every year we would when we started working.
It’s called understanding what’s going on around you and making good investment choices based on that understanding. Sorry you suck at investing PP.

Interesting. If you’re in your early 40s, you’ve been investing for at most 25 years. The stock market has returned an average of 7% each year for the past 25 years (2000-2025). Assuming you’ve been 100% invested in the stock market for this entire time, you would have to have saved $85,000 every single year for 25 years straight to amass $5.5M by now. And you’re somehow well over that….

Even more interesting is that the maximum employee + employer contribution was no where close to $85,000 in 2000 and it isn’t even that much right now for a single person.

Guess you’ve been blowing the S&P 500 out of the water for 25 years nonstop?!? Sounds more like money laundering and fraud than anything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not 457, but max out my 401k and Mega Roth. 24,500 401k +10k employer match +34,500 Mega Roth. Total annual contributions $69,000. My DH does 401k, plus his 8k roth catch up. RMDs will kill us.

Same with us, plus we max HSA and don't spend it. We've been maxing the federal limit for a decade. Both late 30s with 3.8M in combined retirement funds. I don't know what we're going to do with it all, but we keep maxing it every year since it seems like leaving money on the table not to.

Dear Simpleton:

Thank you for so blatantly revealing your stupidity. It is mathematically impossible to have accumulated such an amount in retirement savings by your late 30s even across four separate 401k, 403b, 457, or Roth accounts and with employer matching. You’re not even smart enough to provide improbable numbers.

Even if only the spirit of your post is true, this strategy makes you look like a total fool. You’re either so dumb that you can’t figure out how to balance near-term spending with long-term investing or so indolent that you’re hoarding extreme amounts of money to retire early and escape a job for which you’re clearly not a qualified fit.

It’s all about life choices. Perhaps in your next incarnation, you’ll roll the dice more favorably. Sigh.

I disagree. My spouse and I are early 40s and our 401Ks (both regular 401K and Roth 402K) & Roth IRAs are worth well over $5.5M. We maxed out contributions every year we would when we started working.
It’s called understanding what’s going on around you and making good investment choices based on that understanding. Sorry you suck at investing PP.

Interesting. If you’re in your early 40s, you’ve been investing for at most 25 years. The stock market has returned an average of 7% each year for the past 25 years (2000-2025). Assuming you’ve been 100% invested in the stock market for this entire time, you would have to have saved $85,000 every single year for 25 years straight to amass $5.5M by now. And you’re somehow well over that….

Even more interesting is that the maximum employee + employer contribution was no where close to $85,000 in 2000 and it isn’t even that much right now for a single person.

Guess you’ve been blowing the S&P 500 out of the water for 25 years nonstop?!? Sounds more like money laundering and fraud than anything else.

DP. I don’t even bother with workplace retirement plans. Put $5K into my Roth IRA ten years ago and invested all of it in stocks like NVDA. Did the same thing for the next several years and now have $6.8M in after-tax retirement savings at the age of 29. Only $50K of that is original contributions tho so I can’t take much out without paying taxes on the remaining gains til retirement.

Pretty sure only boomers use the S&P 500 as a yardstick for measuring investment performance anyway. Funny to read about all these dummies squirreling away $50K-$80K per year when one tenth of that is enough for a truly clever investor to get the job done. Pathetic.

[Anonymous]

I think some of these numbers are believable. I’ve always been employed and had good match and have $1.4mm in tax advantaged accounts at 37. Wife did a lot of grad school / jobs without 401k so only $100k.

If wife was in same career path as me, we’d have almost $3mm before 40.

It’s been a big bull market. The top 1-10% of retirement savers should have a fair bit by 40.

$1mm or $3mm isn’t what it used to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not 457, but max out my 401k and Mega Roth. 24,500 401k +10k employer match +34,500 Mega Roth. Total annual contributions $69,000. My DH does 401k, plus his 8k roth catch up. RMDs will kill us.

Same with us, plus we max HSA and don't spend it. We've been maxing the federal limit for a decade. Both late 30s with 3.8M in combined retirement funds. I don't know what we're going to do with it all, but we keep maxing it every year since it seems like leaving money on the table not to.

Dear Simpleton:

Thank you for so blatantly revealing your stupidity. It is mathematically impossible to have accumulated such an amount in retirement savings by your late 30s even across four separate 401k, 403b, 457, or Roth accounts and with employer matching. You’re not even smart enough to provide improbable numbers.

Even if only the spirit of your post is true, this strategy makes you look like a total fool. You’re either so dumb that you can’t figure out how to balance near-term spending with long-term investing or so indolent that you’re hoarding extreme amounts of money to retire early and escape a job for which you’re clearly not a qualified fit.

It’s all about life choices. Perhaps in your next incarnation, you’ll roll the dice more favorably. Sigh.

I disagree. My spouse and I are early 40s and our 401Ks (both regular 401K and Roth 402K) & Roth IRAs are worth well over $5.5M. We maxed out contributions every year we would when we started working.
It’s called understanding what’s going on around you and making good investment choices based on that understanding. Sorry you suck at investing PP.

Interesting. If you’re in your early 40s, you’ve been investing for at most 25 years. The stock market has returned an average of 7% each year for the past 25 years (2000-2025). Assuming you’ve been 100% invested in the stock market for this entire time, you would have to have saved $85,000 every single year for 25 years straight to amass $5.5M by now. And you’re somehow well over that….

Even more interesting is that the maximum employee + employer contribution was no where close to $85,000 in 2000 and it isn’t even that much right now for a single person.

Guess you’ve been blowing the S&P 500 out of the water for 25 years nonstop?!? Sounds more like money laundering and fraud than anything else.

DP. I don’t even bother with workplace retirement plans. Put $5K into my Roth IRA ten years ago and invested all of it in stocks like NVDA. Did the same thing for the next several years and now have $6.8M in after-tax retirement savings at the age of 29. Only $50K of that is original contributions tho so I can’t take much out without paying taxes on the remaining gains til retirement.

Pretty sure only boomers use the S&P 500 as a yardstick for measuring investment performance anyway. Funny to read about all these dummies squirreling away $50K-$80K per year when one tenth of that is enough for a truly clever investor to get the job done. Pathetic.

What a stud, easily out performing Warren Buffet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think some of these numbers are believable. I’ve always been employed and had good match and have $1.4mm in tax advantaged accounts at 37. Wife did a lot of grad school / jobs without 401k so only $100k.

If wife was in same career path as me, we’d have almost $3mm before 40.

It’s been a big bull market. The top 1-10% of retirement savers should have a fair bit by 40.

$1mm or $3mm isn’t what it used to be.

A 37yo such as yourself has experienced one of the biggest bull markets in history. Seventeen years ago marks the financial market and housing collapse, after all. Markets have returned an average of 12.7% per year during this period vs. only 7% when including years 2000-2008. Huge difference. 2008 markets reverted back to 1997 levels.

In other words, most people who are currently 37yo should have about the same as someone who is 48yo. The unlucky people that entered the market in 1997 and are now pushing 50 saw net zero growth for the first eleven years.

Don’t assume that because you have $1.4M at 37yo a comparable saver with a similar HHI history at 47yo would have $5.5M. It doesn’t work that way.

[Anonymous]

That’s a fair point, but I’ve made a market like return so you have to allow for some outliers.

Any longtime Apple Amazon Microsoft Meta (much less NVDA) employees with a significant component of employer stock would see some major windfalls.

Regardless of the merits of concentrating one’s retirement in employer stock, some do. Some companies offer discounted stock purchases. With match, the discount, a high rate of compounding, it’s not inconceivable for a high earning couple to have several million in tax advantaged accounts by 40.