One common piece of personal finance advice, readily available from sources as reputable as a recent article featured on the NY Times, is to max out your retirement savings account. For those people lucky enough to be offered a 401k plan by their employer, this can seem like the obvious choice.
The problem is, for people who need money today to pay the bills, contributing to a retirement account locks up critical income that can only be touched later in life, or else heavy financially penalties will be imposed. And while some employer-sponsored plans offer employees a match, which essentially increases the employee’s pay, one must give up liquidity to get it. So while it might be good advice for most, it’s not for everybody.
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