401K How Much?

[creditcardfree]

Since we are Army there is no match! Having been in the private sector we know those matches really add up. Take all you can get!! It's free money.

I'm not going to complain we do get some tax free benefits in the form of housing allowance. We take 15% of that as well and sock it away for retirement...in our Roth IRA's.

[MonkeyMama]

When I had 401k I put 10% of my pay in. Looking back I wasn't very knowledgable, I could have put the 15k max per year and saved us a lot in taxes. woulda coulda shoulda.

I don't have a 401k now, but if I had one I would probably only contribute $100/month or so. On the flip side if dh got a job tomorrow with a 401k I would put his entire paycheck to it. Get that tax benefit and sock it away. That would be about 15% of our income so not a huge stretch.

If you can maximize your company match, great. If not, just do the best you can...

Oh - and my match at the time was nothing - LOL. $500 for $9k contributed??? If that, but better than nothing, indeed.

For now I have an employer who funds 10% of my pay into a retirement fund and we try to save 10% on our own in IRAs.

[disneysteve]

I don't have a 401K. I put $4,000 into my ROTH and $4,000 into my wife's ROTH. My wife recently became eligible for a 403b at work and we put the max of $15,000/year in that ($625 per paycheck). We are both 42. When you add in taxable investments that we make and 529 for our daughter, our total savings is about 26% of our gross income.

[Lonewolf]

Hot Dog,

I've been lurking on this board for some time, but your post made me want to add my experience. Be careful comparing yourself to other, as everyone is in different places at different times. When I first got married to my darling wife 7 years ago, she had already been investing in her 401K for 10 years (I'm 35 now). I felt so defeated as I had done nothing at all when it came to my retirement. When I started my new job, I put in 6% in order to get the company match of 3%. I "had" a pension, so I figured at least I had that as a safety blanket to make up for my lost investment time. Now that Pension will be frozen as of next year, so that now will pay for my groceries during my retirement . . . if I'm lucky. What I learned is to make baby steps. Over the past 3 years I've bumped that 6% to 16%. Just try to do a little bit at a time and you'll adjust to your new net income.

So it sounds like you are putting away what you can right now, and as DisneySteve just posted, it only gets to be more challenging once you add little boys and girls in the picture and want to make sure they have a college education too . .

[TBH]

I'm 29 (for a few more weeks only!). Spouse is 43.

I have 2 employers.

Employer No. 1: I put in 10% and they match the first 5%, for a total of 15% of my gross.
Employer No. 2: I put in 11% and they put in 7%, for a total of 18% of my gross.

Spouse puts in 15% and his employer puts in 5%, for a total of 20% of his gross.

I started contributing to workplace plans at age 25, when I first became eligible. I'm not regularly contributing to my Roth or my spouse's Roth right now, but hope to start small ($50/month in each of our Roths) in 2007.

I've written about this on my blog also, here and here.

[Hot dog]

I am going to try and boost it $25 so that it can be about 10% of my pay. Wow some of you are doing so well. We get the $600 match and I still can't talk some of my co workers to contribute. I work at a hospital and even some of the docs are in bad shape because they just never thought about the future well now they are there surprise some even now say I won't be alive that long. Well, what if you are. I just wish they could sign their match over to me. As for my spouse, I can't believe there is no match sometimes I want to call the personel office and see if there is one but I guess that would be wrong I have asked some coworkers and they seem to be as uninformed as my spouse is. Although in their profession they get at least 40% retirement at 20 years Me only 30% at 30 yrs

[Ima saver]

Neither myself of my dh has ever worked for anyone that offered any type of of 401 or retirement plan, so it is all up to us to save for our own retirement. I am glad you are all starting at such a young age.

[frugalmomof1]

DH and I each contribute 5% of our salary, and the company matches up to $30 per week.
As of Jan 1, our contributions will increase to 6%.

[rooskers]

My wife puts in 15% of her income into her 403B and company matches 3%. When I worked I put in 20% of my income. My wife and I are both 28 and I am glad to say that we have socked away $88,000 in retirement. However it seems like it is never enough and now that we just bought a house I don't see us being able to increase the amount we save each year like I try to do.

[rduell]

DH's company matches up to 6% of his gross wages, so that's what we contribute each week right now. When debt is paid we'll bump that up higher.

This year my employer matches $1,000 so that's how much I've contributed. Starting next year they will match $1500 so I'm raising my contribution to $1500. As soon as I get the CC paid off I'm going to raise my contribution even though we'll still owe on a couple of other debts. I got a late start in life since I just started saving last year so I want to try to "catch up" a little.

[yellow heel]

I try to max out the 401k every year. My employer puts in 3% no matter what I put in though.

[sarah]

How many of you have defined pension plans in addition to your 401k. I have one and in addition I condtubute about 5 percent of my gross to my 403b

[rduell]

My DH has a pension plan.