Dark Side of 401ks

15 Hidden Downsides to Your 401k No One Mentions

Personal Finance Twitter Loves 401k. And what’s not to love? They are tax-advantaged. You can put money in tax free AND defer taxes on gains till retirement. You can do payroll deduction right off the top of your paycheck making them a super convenient way to save & invest for retirement.

Hell, we have recommended 401ks numerous times.

But what if under all the nice sounding reasons, there was a dark insidious side of 401ks. A side that makes you cry out for forgiveness for contributing to them at all (outside of employer match of course).

Creepy kids & lots of shock twists and turns in store in this post…minus the creepy kids part

What is the dark side of 401ks? The features that don’t get discussed. Lore has it, that if you say 5 of the below 401k drawbacks in the mirror with the lights off, Dave Ramsey appears like the Candyman in your house, wielding a huge knife, and starts cutting up your credit cards.

*shudders* …Terrifying…also last horror movie reference this post…we think

We ran a little Twitter poll on the subject and got a nice mix of results with “contribute up to the 401k match” as the winner:

So are our Twitter followers acting rational? What are these downsides? What do we do and what should you do?

Well we provide 15 little known downsides to 401ks below to help you decide if 401ks are right for you.