The match you are not collecting
calculatorHow much employer money am I leaving behind this year?
Two numbers in, one number out: the Employer matchMoney your employer adds to your plan in proportion to what you contribute, typically up to a few percent of salary. Declining it is declining part of your stated compensation.Read the evidence on this → your current deferral rate declines, and what declining it every year until retirement costs. The clearest mistake in personal finance, priced.
Two numbers
$60,000
The percentage of salary going into your 401(k) from each paycheck.
It is in your plan's summary description. If you are not sure, the first one is what most plans copy.
You are leaving behind
$600
a year
Deferring another $1,200 a year — taking you to 5.0% of salary — collects it. Your employer pays 50% on every one of those dollars, which is an immediate return no investment offers and no debt costs.
And if you leave it behind every year until 65
$41,208
In today’s money, over 33 years, at 6.8% net of fees and 2.5% inflation. The nominal figure is $68,532, which is the bigger number and the less useful one.
- Full-match deferral
- 5.0%
- Match at that rate
- $2,400
- Return on the next dollar
- 50%
What collects everything
Employer money available
Paid by your employer
Why this is worth its own page
A match is the only place in personal finance where the return is both immediate and certain. Fifty cents on the dollar is a 50% return on the day it lands, before the money has been invested in anything, which is why the plan on this site puts it above clearing debt at any interest rate you are likely to be paying.
It goes uncollected not because people disagree, but because the default contribution rate in most plans sits below the match threshold and nobody sends a statement saying what was left behind this year. That is the whole mechanism, and it is why the fix is a one-off change to a percentage rather than a change of mind.