How many here contribute the full 17,500 to their 401k? (paying, taxes, income)

[Thinking-man]

1. what's your contribution amount for the year?
2. About how much is your salary?
3. Do you find it difficult to contribute the full 17,500?
4. what's your company match?

[Pitt Chick]

DH does. It is a bit difficult, but it really reduces his tax burden!

[hken]

Nope, can't afford it. I put in 10%, $14K per year. My company matches me 10% so it's a no brainer to at least get that.

[pinipig523]

Pretty close but my employer does the rest to get to the $51 max.

Currently I contribute $1K/mo, which is like under 3% of my income.

[Lacerta]

Not even close. That would be fully 50% before taxes of my husband's income.

We contribute enough for the full company match, which is 100% on 4% of income. We do max out 2 Roth IRAs each year.

[synchronicity]

I've always contributed either the federal deductible max (which as you note is currently 17.5K) or the max allowed by my employer (X% of salary), whichever is lower. Been doing that since October of '96.

Sadly, my employer allowed max is currently below the federal max, which ticks me off far more than it should.

As an aside, I've also always contributed the maximum allowed to a Roth IRA ever since the Roth IRA was created. I'd be curious what percentage of the population has done that and suspect it's VERY small, since one not only would have to be prudent with their money to have enough to max out a Roth, but additionally stay below the Roth AGI threshold (currently about 188K for MFJ, IIRC) every year. Many people don't have the spare several thousand every year to drop into a Roth, and of those that do I'm guessing a sizable percentage earn "too much" to be eligible to do a Roth contribution.

[michgc]

1. My husband contributes the full $17.5K to his 401k. (I am a SAHM so no 401k for me, but when I did work, I contributed the maximum allowed by my company.)

2. Not comfortable saying salary directly, but $17.5K is more than 10% of his salary

3. It's not too difficult to do the contribution because it comes out from the top before we see it. It's no more difficult than paying social security taxes or our health insurance premium, for example. We made the decision to maximize his 401k for several reasons but mostly because of #4. But also, it does reduce our tax burden.

4. His company gives a 50% match! So he gets $8750 each year. We'd be stupid not to contribute as much as we can with that match!

We each contribute $5500 to a Roth IRA as well.
We are a family of 5.

[gtc08]

i will max it if i can, just got the job.

[Sunbather]

Originally Posted by Thinking-man

1. what's your contribution amount for the year?
2. About how much is your salary?
3. Do you find it difficult to contribute the full 17,500?
4. what's your company match?

1. We both max whatever the federal limit is every year
2. Not disclosing my exact salary
3. Not that difficult. It was when I first started working 7 years ago and was making about 40% less than I am now, but since I started there and my salary has gone up it is just natural for us at this time.
4. Company match is $1:$1 to 5% plus a discretionary amount at the end of the year based on the company's annual performance

[rdflk]

I put in 5% (NO company match)
I did do the max of 15% before I bought a house 11 years ago, then dropped it to 5%.

Also, the company puts 8% of salary in a Def. Cont. plan.