Reply to Should I stop saving in 401K for short period to increase house down payment fund?

Forum Index » Money and Finances

Reply to "Should I stop saving in 401K for short period to increase house down payment fund?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I would not. Let's say you decrease your contributions 12k, that only nets you 8k after federal and state withholding. If you leave that 12k in the 401k it would be between 69k (5%) and 121k (8%) in 30 years. Mortgage rates are pretty low, you are better served with that money in the market where it should earn a better return. Your marginal tax rate is also much higher now than it will be in retirement.

As an aside, I would not look at 300k as all that much. We are 35/36 with 1 who only got access to a 401k in 2011 and only recently broke 200k hhi, we have nearly 440k in 401k and another 180k in IRAs. Not saying 300k is bad - it's not - but I would not feel comfortable backing off of retirement savings. [/quote]

Not OP - but PLEASE tell me how you did this![/quote]

I was a FARMS kid at points, knew that was not something I wanted for my kids, so I pushed myself to save. Graduated 2002.  Didn't do well the first 2 years out of school. The figures below are contributions for the calendar year, not tax year (for instance 2008 has the 2007 tax year Ira contributions and the 2008 tax year contributions), including the vested company match. my best advice is to just max the 401k and figure out how to live on the rest. Contribute to an IRA (traditional or roth depending on the limits and your marginal rate) if you can, fund a Roth IRA with emergency funds if you don't otherwise have the money.

2002-2004: 11,427 contributions (my 401k and IRA)
2005: 15,200 (my 401k, both wife and my IRAs)
2006: 27,600
2007: 23,400
2008: 37,600
2009: 19,800
2010: 25,600
2011: 43,400 (wife gets 401k mid-year))
2012: 51,200
2013: 64,500
2014: 54,500
2015 so far: 23,200

Total contributions of 398k, gains of 232k. 
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics