October 8, 2014
Waiting to leave a workplace until you are fully vested with your retirement plan is wise financially. Why?
Waiting to leave a workplace until you are fully vested with your retirement plan is wise financially. Why?
If you are not fully vested with your work place when you leave you may not get or will only get part of your employers contributions into your 401k. You will always keep your 401k contributions that you made yourself however. An employer may have a vesting table that has you 10% vested after 1 year, 30% vested after 2 Years, 50% vested after 3, and 75% vested after 4 and fulled vested after 5 years. Or an employer may just have you fulled vested after 5 years and there is no building up to it, or you are fully vested as soon as you start and put money away. It is important to know because you may be only a few months away from being fully vested when you leave and if you leave early it could cost you a few thousand dollars your employer was going to give you.
Well said, Garrett! Let’s review.
Vesting comes down to the money or benefits an employer has promised you. It usually has a time period that you are required to fulfill before you get some or all of them. Know that time period!