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No, not a 401k unless you don't want to be able to do anything with it until you are retired. The purpose of a non 401k is to invest so you don't have to wait
by programminggeek 10y ago
No, not a 401k unless you don't want to be able to do anything with it until you are retired.
The purpose of a non 401k is to invest so you don't have to wait until you are 65 to retire.
- mattzito 10y agoIf you're at a company that matches your 401k contribution, you're literally leaving free money on the table if you don't contribute to a 401k. I think the most sensible approach is to contribute enough to your 401k that you max out an employer match (hopefully you have one of those), and then invest the remainder of your savings in the market. But waiting until you have 100k in cash before you do something with it seems crazy to me.
- petercooper 10y agoBut waiting until you have 100k in cash before you do something with it seems crazy to me. The theory is that without a healthy emergency fund, you won't take risks on better investments later on. I buy into this as I played it pretty safe until I had a year or two's income saved. I then decided to do my own thing for a bit, and now I'm running a healthy business that I wouldn't have been otherwise (basically a freelancer to business owner transition).
- mattzito 10y agoBut let's say you have a 50k 401k that you can borrow against in an emergency, and a 50k index fund - that's 75k in liquidity that you have available to you with a few days notice. 100k in the bank sitting there is getting you maybe 1% and the need for that money on an instant's notice seems...low.