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Comment by tardismechanic | Hacker News Reader

> that's on them and you are absolutely 100% free to leave.

Not if you are on an H1B visa ;-)

Well, that gets to my other lesson: Save money aggressively so I'm not beholden to any employer. It's harder when you're taking care of a family on one income (and not making FAANG money), but I saved aggressively when I was young and single. I never actually had to use that option, but I was in a position where I could have lived (as a single healthy guy with no debt) for 4-5 years without needing a paycheck. I wouldn't have lived well mind you, it would've been tight to stretch it that far, but it was possible. My main mistake was putting too much in my 401k. I'm set when I retire, but I still don't have enough assets to get me to retirement.

This works even when you're on a visa, but can take longer to be truly comfortable. I had a classmate in college who'd secured a work visa. His plan was to work for perhaps a decade in the US, save aggressively, and then return to his home country. Salaries in the US were 10x higher at the time than in his home country. Saving even 20%/year meant saving 2 years' of income every year he worked. And he was frugal enough to save a lot more than that. Invested well, taking what he learned back home, he would be set for life at this point (I didn't stay in touch so I only know the plan started well, not how it turned out).

> My main mistake was putting too much in my 401k

Can you expand on this? I recently moved to the US and people keep telling me to get a 401k, but I haven't yet.

A 401k is specifically a retirement account - you pay an extra 10% for withdrawing from it before age 59.5, which should add context to the rest of their paragraph.

Look up the 72(t) rule relating to a 401k. You can retire early and start withdrawals at any age without penalty, as long as you continue the withdrawals for sufficient time (the longer of five years or until age 59.5.) This fixes the "too much in the 401k" situation.

Less than full liquidity. If you get a decent matching contribution from your employer, it's probably worthwhile. Otherwise, it may be kind of a toss-up.

  At a minimum, you should save enough to your 401K to get the company matching.
  Let's say the company match 50% on the first 6% you save.
  So if you put 6% of your salary to 401k, the company will add another 3% in addition to what you did. That's a free 3% raise. 
  Tell me another way that you can get guaranteed 50% return of your money.

 
  In addition, there is the tax advantage where you do not get taxed on your money until you retire. So you money grow without taxes until you actually need them.

  Are there bad 401k? yes, but I think very few. Check the rules of your company. But most of them are very good deals and you should take advantage of them if you can.

The problem I see is that if you're 30 and use that rule, you are basically forced to drain your 401k over the next 29.5 years.

Yes, but you don't have to spend it all. You could take just what you need to live on and invest the rest elsewhere. You'd give up some of the tax-deferral advantages of the 401k, of course.

(Perhaps you could roll over part of the 401k into an IRA first, and then take the rest as 72(t)?)

Another idea aside from living 4-5yrs on savings is to save towards F.I.R.E and get financial independence for a lifetime https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/financial-independence-...

>> Not if you are on an H1B visa ;-)

But one must also 100% expect themselves to evaluate thoroughly T&C, pros and cons before signing up for anything, including a visa.

You can find a new job though.

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