Everyday Money Habits · Worksheet

The match is part of your pay.

If you contribute 6% and they match 3%, your real pay is 103% of what the offer letter said. If you contribute zero, it’s 100%. This sheet finds your plan’s formula, turns it into dollars, and shows what claiming it is worth.

Beginner
First job

Name

Date

Audience: For anyone with a 401(k) and a match to claim
Time: About 15 minutes
Materials: Your benefits-portal login or plan summary · a pen

Objective

Decode your plan’s match formula, work out the match band in dollars, and see what’s currently left on the table.

Use this when

You have a 401(k) but aren’t sure you’re contributing enough to collect the full match.

1 · Copy the formula off your plan

Log into the benefits portal (Fidelity, Vanguard, Empower — wherever your 401(k) lives) or open the plan summary, and find the sentence about the employer match. A typical one: "50% of the first 6% you contribute." A tiered formula ("100% of the first 3%, 50% of the next 2%")? Use the combined total (5% in that example) as your ceiling. Can’t find the sentence at all? Ask HR for the Summary Plan Description, the plan’s official rulebook.

For every $1 I put in, they add50¢ and $1 are the common answers

…on my pay, up to this percentthe ceiling — the match stops growing past it

Vesting, if the plan mentions itwhen the match becomes fully yours; your own dollars always are

2 · What the formula is worth — a worked example

A $60,000 salary, a 50¢-per-dollar match on the first 6% of pay, contributing the full 6%:

$5,400 lands in the account each year, from $3,600 of your own pay. Formula: annual match = salary × your % (capped at the ceiling) × the match rate.

3 · Now your numbers

My gross pay per yearthe match runs against gross, before taxes

Pay × the ceiling % — what I’d contribute to max the matchthe worked example: $60,000 × 6% = $3,600

…and what they’d add on top, per yearthe line above × the match rate

My contribution rate todaythe "contribution rate" or "deferral percentage" field

Left on the table per year, if I’m under the ceiling= (ceiling % − my rate today) × pay × the match rate. Write $0 if you’re at the ceiling

4 · What claiming it is worth

The worked example’s $1,800-a-year match, invested at 7% and left alone for ten years, grows to about $25,963 — and your own contributions add roughly $51,925 on top. You did not work an extra hour for that first number. A 50¢-per-dollar match is an instant 50% return the day it posts, before any market growth. That’s why the match is the one exception to "debt first": capture the match, then attack the debt.

Same figures the lesson’s calculator shows — 7% a year after inflation, compounded monthly, ten years.

5 · One move

In the portal, the whole move is one field: raise "contribution rate" to the ceiling from box 1. While you’re there, check the investment elections — a low-cost target-date fund is the boring right answer.

I’ll raise my rate tothe match ceiling — or one point higher if the budget allows. Roth and traditional contributions both count toward it

Changed on this dateevery paycheck below the ceiling leaves match money behind for good

6 · Reflection

Your unclaimed match from box 3, multiplied by the years you’ve worked here:

What you’d tell a friend who says they’ll "start contributing once things settle down":

Based on the lesson on the employer match.