Yes. It’s free money if there is an employer match.I volunteered for a package and am retiring in a few months, and my husband plans to keep working for a few more years. So we're going down to one paycheck.
One paycheck is not going to be enough money to live on. I think these are our options - which one makes the most sense?
1. Pull back on 401k contributions so we have more money in our pockets
2. Max the 401k's to save on taxes, and then pull from brokerage to make up the difference
3. Roth?? It's our last few years to be able to put substantial money in Roth (Roth 401k is available), but then we would have no tax shelter AND have to pull even more from brokerage to live on, so is that like paying 40% tax to get money into Roth?
Stats:
We are ages 51/54, and have 1.2m in pre-tax, $130k in Roth, and 2.3m in taxable.
AA 60/40
Annual expenses in retirement $125-150k
24% fed tax bracket + 8% state
*We do have about 300k cash (part of the taxable number). I was thinking we should "stack cash" in the lead-up to retirement, that's why there's so much.
If no employer match, my answer is no.
You have sufficient liquidity in taxable to get to 59.5.
Statistics: Posted by chassis — Mon Dec 29, 2025 7:23 am — Replies 6 — Views 502