Wise Bread | Personal Finance and Frugal Living Forums

Great post as usual, Philip!
Diversification is the key, and having your entire portfolio in a 401k can be risky for all the reasons you mentioned here.

@Sara: my humble thoughts are that if you were to make the contribution to the 401k anyway, then go ahead. But if that money according to Philip's list might be better used elsewhere, and you're not getting the company match, then maybe you're on the right track with your thinking.

The one advantage of contributing through an employer (company match or not), is the immediate tax relief. If I'm not mistaken (at least it works this way in Canada), your contribution would come off your gross pay, and you effectively get your tax refund right away. $100 contributed through work off your gross pay leaves you with more on your net paystub and in your pocket than if you contributed $100 from your net pay and waited for the refund to come.

Not to step on your toes, Philip - just my two frugal cents. Thoughts?

Reply

Please keep the comments civil and on-topic. Abusive or inappropriate comments will be removed without warning. By posting here you agree to our terms of use.

Your name:

E-mail:

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage:

If you leave a link (include the http:// part), your name will be linked to your homepage.

Subject:

Comment: *

You may use some HTML for formatting: <strong>bold text</strong>, <em>italics</em>, and <a href="">for links</a>. Empty lines are automatically converted to paragraph breaks.

Or click the link above that says 'enable rich-text' to use the fancy editor.

Captcha

This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Math Question: * 13 + 3 =

Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.

Have more to say? Join the discussions at Wise Bread's Finance and Frugality Forums.