Just a reminder that if you're planning to front-load your 401k in the new year, check your company's matching policy or you may miss out on some of the matching contributions.
I was reading about this last night, did some research, and found I'd made this mistake last year. I fully funded my 401k to the $18,000 pre-tax limit by the end of July. Unfortunately, my employer matches 5% per pay period (regardless if your contribution is 5% or 25%) so I got no match August through December because I was not making contributions those months. Some companies have a true-up at the end of the year but many, like mine, do not. I missed out on over $3,000 of matching.
If you find yourself in a similar situation, you can still front-load your contributions to an extent, but leave enough contributions through the end of the year to get your full match. Example: maybe contribute 25% for a few months and then reduce it to 5% for the rest of the year.
If you want more information on why you might want to front-load retirement accounts, here's a good place to start: Mad Fientist on front-loading
Submitted January 11, 2017 at 10:22PM by Stackfault67 http://ift.tt/2jG1e5M
