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

[Anonymous]

To be fair, some people with very big 401ks have some luck. My wife for instance her company only matched in company stock. And a stock that has outperformed the last 20 years the stock market. So in her case no Warren Buffet just lucky did not work at Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns as would have lost her whole match.

Imagine if you worked at Google and they did match in employer stock how much you have if you worked there 10 years.

[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.

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.

PP here…you’re making a few incorrect assumptions. We are 43/42 yo. I said the combined value of our three types of accounts (401K, Roth 401K, & Roth IRA) was $5.5M. We were not privileged. Just smart in our investment decisions picking the right stocks early where we could buy many shares on the cheap that eventually went parabolic. The Roth IRA alone is worth over $3.5M. As soon as we made too much $ for direct Roth contributions we starting doing Backdoor Roths. Look up Peter Thiel and/or Ted Weschler for some inspiration. Their Roth IRAs are worth $5B+ and $264M+ respectively starting with the normal Roth/IRA contributions that everyone else could make early in their working lives. Does that fit your model? I’m guessing no. They are excellent investors. Unfortunately our Roth investments haven’t performed as well as theirs but we’re not complaining.

[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.

See prior post. Just exceptionally well performing individual stock picking in our Roth IRAs mostly and maxing out 401Ks and Roth 401K.

[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.

Spot on. SP500 returns are for the masses who want to go with the flow. If you want to outperform you have to take risk. Most of the posters on here are not clever investors.

[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.

You’re assuming we invested in the S&P500. Your assumption is incorrect. All it takes is a lot of due diligence, investing in what you know, and yes some luck to outperform the S&P500 by a huge margin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Actually a lot of people outperform Warren Buffett on a percentage basis. You just don’t hear about them in the financial media and if they’re like me they keep it quiet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Once again, this poster assumes people only invest in the S&P500. You can outperform the market (by a lot) by investing in other things dependent on your knowledge and risk tolerance. 401Ks have limited investment options but regular IRAs and Roth IRAs have many more investment options. Have to get away from that S&P500 mindset if you want to outperform.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To be fair, some people with very big 401ks have some luck. My wife for instance her company only matched in company stock. And a stock that has outperformed the last 20 years the stock market. So in her case no Warren Buffet just lucky did not work at Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns as would have lost her whole match.

Imagine if you worked at Google and they did match in employer stock how much you have if you worked there 10 years.

Is it luck or is it knowledge of a particular sector, extensive due diligence (not just reading a bunch of articles), investing skill, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Actually a lot of people outperform Warren Buffett on a percentage basis. You just don’t hear about them in the financial media and if they’re like me they keep it quiet.

They outperform by being lucky. Most get their butt kicked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To be fair, some people with very big 401ks have some luck. My wife for instance her company only matched in company stock. And a stock that has outperformed the last 20 years the stock market. So in her case no Warren Buffet just lucky did not work at Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns as would have lost her whole match.

Imagine if you worked at Google and they did match in employer stock how much you have if you worked there 10 years.

Is it luck or is it knowledge of a particular sector, extensive due diligence (not just reading a bunch of articles), investing skill, etc.

Every study has shown that in almost all cases it boils down to luck. But it's hard to assess when the only thing you are doing is hitting a buy or sell button. The only people I know who actually think they can beat the stock market lack self awareness in a big way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To be fair, some people with very big 401ks have some luck. My wife for instance her company only matched in company stock. And a stock that has outperformed the last 20 years the stock market. So in her case no Warren Buffet just lucky did not work at Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns as would have lost her whole match.

Imagine if you worked at Google and they did match in employer stock how much you have if you worked there 10 years.

Is it luck or is it knowledge of a particular sector, extensive due diligence (not just reading a bunch of articles), investing skill, etc.

Every study has shown that in almost all cases it boils down to luck. But it's hard to assess when the only thing you are doing is hitting a buy or sell button. The only people I know who actually think they can beat the stock market lack self awareness in a big way.

They also don't come here to brag when their "one special trick" stops working (because it was just luck or most likely completely made up in the first place). Don't fall for the FOMO, as is the case every time this comes up, if they could continually beat the market, they wouldn't be doing their day job.

[Anonymous]

Spouse and I both have this option, and we did it for a few years. At some point, our pre-tax retirement investments got uncomfortably high and now we just do the 457b (easy to use for early retirements) and mega backdoor Roth and a regular taxable account (for possible 2nd property… or whatever).

[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.

New poster, but your confidence in basic arithmetic misplaced. During the covid crash my DH did a big 401k roll over and put 80% of our combined account into Xom at $35/share. it’s at 120 now and pays about $4 a share in annualized dividends that we reinvest. we have completely stopped contributing to our 401k because it has essentially run away all on its own. We capped the xom at ~30k shares and that pumps ~120k/yr into our 401k.

I know it’s difficult for you to grasp, but many people don’t care to waste
money on safe index funds, especially not when they are young.

[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.

New poster, but your confidence in basic arithmetic misplaced. During the covid crash my DH did a big 401k roll over and put 80% of our combined account into Xom at $35/share. it’s at 120 now and pays about $4 a share in annualized dividends that we reinvest. we have completely stopped contributing to our 401k because it has essentially run away all on its own. We capped the xom at ~30k shares and that pumps ~120k/yr into our 401k.

I know it’s difficult for you to grasp, but many people don’t care to waste
money on safe index funds, especially not when they are young.

So, to summarize, you’ve taken exceptionally stupid and poorly calculated risks, gotten lucky with random meme stock picking, and now you’re bragging on about your ill-gotten success with the hopes of some sort of pat on the back?!? Sounds like a typical basement-dwelling millennial operating with the safety net of a helicopter parent.

Oh, BTW, there’s no such thing as a combined account for retirement savings. Could you be any more of an idiot?

[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.

New poster, but your confidence in basic arithmetic misplaced. During the covid crash my DH did a big 401k roll over and put 80% of our combined account into Xom at $35/share. it’s at 120 now and pays about $4 a share in annualized dividends that we reinvest. we have completely stopped contributing to our 401k because it has essentially run away all on its own. We capped the xom at ~30k shares and that pumps ~120k/yr into our 401k.

I know it’s difficult for you to grasp, but many people don’t care to waste
money on safe index funds, especially not when they are young.

That's such an amazing strategy that absolutely no one in the investment game recommends it. Not people with decades of experience on Wall Street. Not economists from U of Chicago. Not quants educated at MIT. Nobody.