Doh. Truly a Homer Simpson moment for me today. When I was checking my company-held 401(k) balance the other day, I suddenly had what shouldn’t have been a shocking revelation. There were two little lines there.
Current Balance: $12,765.66
Vested Balance: $8,658.28
Suddenly the financial-speak scales fell off and I saw what it meant for me:
Vested Balance: my money
Current Balance: NOT my money YET
Somewhere the HR aside of a “5-year-vest for company matching funds” came trickling back into my ear. Oops. I do plan on leaving this company when I go to business school. And that will mean walking away from, at this point, $$4,107 of what would have been my money. Certainly not something that would sway my decision. In fact, because my company will sponsor me for business school if I so choose to come back for three years afterwards, I will in fact, probably be walking away from $10,000+ dollars (when I subtract the difference I’d probably get in financial aid anyway). But I will never let money make choices for me that could make me much less happy in the long run. And that’s the point of money anyway, right? Allowing you the freedom to do the things that make you happy.
Now that I’m on the subject though, I’m wondering if, knowing now that I won’t continue with the company (I wasn’t sure of this when I first enrolled in the 401(k) plan of course), if I should lower my contribution on my work 401(k) and put more money into the Roth. I didn’t invest the maximum contribution last year, although I might come closer this year. Seems like a reasonable thing to do… just to make sure I’ll contact my advisor. But if anyone has made a similar choice – please leave me a comment!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment