Current Events > How often should you look at your 401k?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Some people put like 8%-20% of their paycheck into it and also get company match so it's natural to want to check all of the them, I haven't checked this year because of the economy.

You can check it as much as you want but by nature the short-term fluctuations are completely pointless to worry about or obsess over unless you're approaching retirement age. If you're 30 years old and the principle of your investment is down then you have 30 years for it to go back up. In fact, in theory you should prefer it being down earlier in your career so that you buy in at lower prices.

With that being said, I've heard horror stories of people who have no idea what they're invested in and never looked at their 401k for years or decades and discover it was sitting in a money market account the whole time, missing decades of compounding growth. So you should at least check it enough that you don't do something like that.

Maybe dont check today

401k times

Kuuko posted...

You can check it as much as you want but by nature the short-term fluctuations are completely pointless to worry about or obsess over unless you're approaching retirement age. If you're 30 years old and the principle of your investment is down then you have 30 years for it to go back up. In fact, in theory you should prefer it being down earlier in your career so that you buy in at lower prices.

With that being said, I've heard horror stories of people who have no idea what they're invested in and never looked at their 401k for years or decades and discover it was sitting in a money market account the whole time, missing decades of compounding growth. So you should at least check it enough that you don't do something like that.

Thorough and correct

Maybe like once or twice per year.

Unless you are retiring soon, checking is largely pointless. How you fund your 401k shouldn't be based on its current balance, only what your personal retirement goals.

Kuuko posted...

You can check it as much as you want but by nature the short-term fluctuations are completely pointless to worry about or obsess over unless you're approaching retirement age. If you're 30 years old and the principle of your investment is down then you have 30 years for it to go back up. In fact, in theory you should prefer it being down earlier in your career so that you buy in at lower prices.

With that being said, I've heard horror stories of people who have no idea what they're invested in and never looked at their 401k for years or decades and discover it was sitting in a money market account the whole time, missing decades of compounding growth. So you should at least check it enough that you don't do something like that.

Yup good point

Basically never.

Depends if you have it set as your clan tag in CoD or not

Or at least that's the only way that it pertains to me

I usually check every 3 months or so out of curiosity when they mail me my statement.

Compsognathus posted...

Unless you are retiring soon, checking is largely pointless. How you fund your 401k shouldn't be based on its current balance, only what your personal retirement goals.

Exactly.

I'm 44. I don't care what it is now. I care about what it'll be in 15-20 years.

Hourly

i only look at it when i'm in the web portal to pull my tax forms, so maybe once or twice a year

I probably check mine twice a year, once when my company sends out year end account summaries and usually once a year on my own out of curiosity.