Not fully funding 401k? Why not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think your questions seems a littttttle disingenuous because it seems braggy?

Fully funding a 401K at 24 is pretty exceptional and rare. Being gobsmacked that circumstances could change is naive. Asking why seems obvious: people don't fully fund their 401Ks because they can't, or don't care enough, or don't need to.

Right? I was making $40,000 at 24. I don't really think I could have afforded to put almost half my salary in my 401k LOL!

OP said she was early 40s, right? I am almost positive that in the mid-90s the 401k limit was 15% OR $12k (or whatever - it's gone up since then). So if you made $30k, "maxing out" your contribution actually meant $4500. I made $40k in my first real job, but $12k of that was a "cost of living adjustment" because I lived in CA but worked for a MD-based company. The $12k was not eligible for a 401k contribution so my max the first couple years was $4200. I have been maxing it out since day 1 and am lucky enough to not miss the money.

For the poster that is waiting for the correction before she maxes out, please google "dollar cost averaging." It's impossible to time the market so your best bet is to buy on the way up and the way down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think your questions seems a littttttle disingenuous because it seems braggy?

Fully funding a 401K at 24 is pretty exceptional and rare. Being gobsmacked that circumstances could change is naive. Asking why seems obvious: people don't fully fund their 401Ks because they can't, or don't care enough, or don't need to.

Right? I was making $40,000 at 24. I don't really think I could have afforded to put almost half my salary in my 401k LOL!

OP said she was early 40s, right? I am almost positive that in the mid-90s the 401k limit was 15% OR $12k (or whatever - it's gone up since then). So if you made $30k, "maxing out" your contribution actually meant $4500. I made $40k in my first real job, but $12k of that was a "cost of living adjustment" because I lived in CA but worked for a MD-based company. The $12k was not eligible for a 401k contribution so my max the first couple years was $4200. I have been maxing it out since day 1 and am lucky enough to not miss the money.

For the poster that is waiting for the correction before she maxes out, please google "dollar cost averaging." It's impossible to time the market so your best bet is to buy on the way up and the way down.

What are you talking about? If the IRS limit in 1990 was 12k, then maxing out was 12K not 4500 or some other arbitrary number. BTW the limit didn't hit 12k until 2003; in 1995 it was 9200.

[Anonymous]

If I remember right, there was also a percentage limit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Double daycare expenses and not wanting to feel intense financial pressure during this temporary phase in life.

Yeah, we broke with it when we had daycare for a baby and 2-yr-old, and spouse in school. Sometimes retirement has to take a break.

Agreed. We'll have double daycare, one for an infant, in a few months and I am hoping we won't need to adjust retirement down (I just pushed it up a little). I think we'll be ok because some other expenses are falling away -- our car, and older kid will be moving up to a cheaper room. That doesn't make up the difference by any means, but it does give us a little more breathing room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If I remember right, there was also a percentage limit.

This is the PP and this is what I was saying. If I made $28k in 1996, my limit was not $9600 (or whatever the limit was), it was 15% of $28k which was $4200.

Of course I can not find anything online to back this up, so maybe I am remembering incorrectly and missed out on some contributions early on.

[Anonymous]

I think it may have been a TSP specific limit. See percentage limits PDF on this page:
https://www.tsp.gov/representative/Content/TSPResources/index.html