basic retirement question

[zacksbride]

i apologize if these questions are basic, but i am late to the game of starting to fund retirement and want to clear up some things...

i have a mandatory 6.5% contribution to my 401K through work. my employer contributes an additional 8.5%.

2012 was the first full year that i had a retirement fund (bad i know as i'm 33, but med school left me without a job longer than most). my salary is such that with my 6.5% contributions, i contributed almost 20,000 pre-tax to my account this year.

from my understanding, the max is 17,000 - what happens to that additional 3K? my employer contributions do not have a limit, is that correct?

while i am behind on retirement now, i anticipate being able to catch up over the next few years with the amount that i contribute currently. would you all recommend opening a separate private IRA and contributing the $5K annually to that as well?

i may take out some of the specific details on this later...

thanks!

[Deleted]

your employer contributions dont count towards the $17,000-- its just what you contribute.

Eta- totally misread. Ignore.

[limey]

The additional 3k would go into a post tax portion of the account. (Not all employers allow this.)

[Deleted]

Max is $17,500.

[zacksbride]

Jan 9, 2013 18:36:58 GMT -5 limey said:

The additional 3k would go into a post tax portion of the account. (Not all employers allow this.)

Thanks. I guess I will be calling to find out if my employer does this.

[Deleted]

Max you can contribute for 2103 is $17,500; $3k is icing on the cake.

If you can afford to contribute to an IRA as well, and particularly if you are eligible to make Roth contributions, it is definitely not a bad thing to do!

[zacksbride]

Jan 9, 2013 18:37:57 GMT -5 @misoangry said:

Max is $17,500.

that's for 2013, right? for 2012 it was 17K i thought.

really doesn't matter, i still have contributed more than the max and need to figure out what happens to that extra money that is sitting in my retirement fund now.