{"id":925723,"date":"2026-10-12T18:52:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T18:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/925723\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T18:52:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T18:52:18","slug":"making-cents-dont-make-these-three-401k-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/925723\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Cents: Don’t make these three 401(k) mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Deirdre<\/a>SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014<\/p>\n

Banking on your 401(k) to fund your retirement? Don’t get caught by three common mistakes. <\/p>\n

Kathryn McCall<\/a>, CAPTRUST vice president and financial adviser, says some of the biggest problems arise after someone takes a loan against their investment account. <\/p>\n

“In addition to giving up earnings growth on that money, there are tax implications of the loan because you have to pay back the loan with after-tax money and then when you take the money at retirement you get taxed on it again. That makes the value of the loan double-taxed,” McCall said. <\/p>\n

McCall also pointed out you lose out on company matches on loan repayments. <\/p>\n

The second biggest mistake is not taking advantage of a company match. McCall called employee matches “free money” and reminded employees that 401(k) matches are part of your benefits and compensation package. <\/p>\n

And the third mistake to watch out for is failing to invest your 401(k) money properly. <\/p>\n

McCall said, “Remember to go into your company\u2019s retirement site to make sure your account is invested for appropriate long-term growth. If you are younger and have a long horizon towards retirement, consider having a higher allocation to stocks.”<\/p>\n

People approaching retirement should aim to reduce risk levels. McCall recommended talking with a financial advisor to make sure you are on track for your retirement goals. <\/p>\n

See more coverage of top California stories here<\/a> | Download our app<\/a> | Subscribe to our morning newsletter<\/a> | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel<\/a> | Make KCRA a preferred news source in Google<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 Banking on your 401(k) to fund your retirement? Don’t get caught by three common mistakes.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":925724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1778,13327,64,63,99,493337,493339,6157,13301,186,5474,493338,416890,49091,11412,58871,187,6622,184,185,1793,1781,49105],"class_list":["post-925723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-401k","tag-app","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-company-match","tag-compensation-package","tag-download","tag-employee","tag-finance","tag-investment","tag-investment-account","tag-kathryn-mccall","tag-kcra","tag-loan","tag-mistake","tag-money","tag-part","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-retirement","tag-savings","tag-subscribe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=925723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}