HR said skip the 401(k). Reddit's 120 commenters say otherwise.
As seen on the 24/7 Wall St. homepage on September 29, 2026.
A 401k is a benefit even with no matching. The only reason to avoid it is if it only had horrible high cost funds or super high fees or something odd However almost all 401k plans I have seen usually have some good index funds. I personally would ask them why they advise against it lol
HR told new hires to skip the company 401(k), and 120 commenters mostly disagree: no match still leaves the tax break, and an unmatched 401(k) beats a taxable brokerage once a Roth IRA and HSA are funded. The only real dealbreaker is high fees, so ask for the fund lineup.
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When a new hire posted that her company's orientation slide showed a big X over the 401(k) and told employees not to use it, the r/personalfinance crowd mostly pushed back hard. The top comment, from user SirGlass, made the core case plainly: a 401(k) is a benefit even without a match, and the only legitimate reason to avoid one is a lineup of high-cost funds or unusually steep fees.
The original poster, groovydoll, had already looked into opening a traditional IRA alongside her Roth IRA before realizing the combined contribution limit is shared across both accounts, not separate per account. That discovery left her weighing a taxable brokerage account against the unmatched 401(k), and she also mentioned she likely qualifies for an HSA she has never used before.
Several commenters pointed out the priority order this community generally agrees on: max the Roth IRA and HSA first, then turn to an unmatched 401(k), and only after that consider a taxable brokerage. The tax advantage alone makes the 401(k) worth using once the higher-priority accounts are funded, even if no employer match is on the table.
The unanswered question running through all 120 comments is why HR put that X on the slide in the first place, with commenters pressing groovydoll to go back and simply ask whether the HR representative was poorly informed or the plan's fund lineup is genuinely problematic. Until the fund options and fee schedule are in hand, the no-match fact alone is not a reason to walk away from a tax-advantaged account.