I’ve been pouring money into my 401(k) and it’s nearly $1 million – but is it actually too much?

The author’s spouse is currently on maternity leave but will soon be working one day per week to earn $45,000 per year. She is the primary caregiver to their children. They live in a VHCOL (very high cost of living) area, have family nearby to assist with childcare if needed, and carry a $1.7 million home with a $1.2 million mortgage at 5%.

The author maxes his 401(k) every February. He is questioning what they should do about his wife’s retirement savings, given that her employer offers no 401(k) match. The decision on the table is whether to direct 50% of her income into her 403(b). For 2025, the IRS employee contribution limit for both 401(k) and 403(b) plans is $23,500, rising to $24,500 in 2026.

Traditional vs. Roth: The ChubbyFIRE Crossroads

Observations

The author’s post carries an undercurrent of anxiety. A newborn tends to sharpen financial stress, and the frantic tone here likely reflects the weight of suddenly having three children under three rather than a genuine crisis in the retirement plan. In the comments, he returns repeatedly to the point that his wife can return to full-time work if income needs to rise, which is a meaningful backstop he seems to undervalue.

Even counting all accounts combined, this couple is putting away roughly 10% of their income toward retirement. The widely cited benchmark is 15%, a figure that Fidelity has long recommended and that the broader retirement-plan community has adopted as a rule of thumb. Reaching that target would require doing more than just maxing the one employer-sponsored 401(k): there are IRAs, HSAs, and the wife’s 403(b) all sitting available.

Much of the r/ChubbyFIRE thread focuses on Required Minimum Distributions, the mandatory annual withdrawals the federal government requires from tax-deferred accounts once the owner reaches age 73. Miss a deadline and the IRS can assess an excise tax of 25% on the shortfall. That penalty drops to 10% if the missed distribution is corrected within a two-year correction window, per current IRS rules under SECURE 2.0. The commenters warning him about RMDs are essentially pointing out that a large pre-tax account balance can push retirees into higher brackets decades from now. One structural answer, which the thread raises, is routing contributions through a Roth 403(b) for his wife. Designated Roth workplace accounts carry no lifetime RMD requirement for the original owner, meaning the future distribution problem simply disappears for that portion of their savings.

Key Takeaways

To appreciate how far ahead this couple sits, consider the broader landscape. According to Vanguard’s “How America Saves 2025” report, which draws on data from nearly 5 million defined contribution plan participants, the average 401(k) balance across all age groups was $148,153 in 2024. The median balance was just $38,176. At nearly $1 million combined across both accounts at ages 37 and 38, this couple is in a category most workers never reach.

One point on which the r/ChubbyFIRE community converges is that maxing out available retirement accounts is almost always the right call regardless of income level. The author never states a retirement spending target, which makes it difficult to determine whether their current trajectory is sufficient. Without anchoring the plan to a specific number and lifestyle, optimizing account types in a vacuum produces limited insight.

For early-retirement seekers building a large nest egg, accessing those funds before age 59.5 is more achievable than most people assume. The Rule of 55 allows penalty-free withdrawals from a workplace plan if the employee separates from service during or after the calendar year they turn 55. Substantially Equal Periodic Payments under IRS Section 72(t) provide a separate bridge option that works at any age, structured as a series of distributions calculated to run at least five years or until age 59.5, whichever is longer. Both mechanisms exist precisely to mitigate the concern about over-funding tax-advantaged vehicles.

The deeper issue this post surfaces is one of priorities rather than portfolio construction. Managing three children under three while one parent is the primary caregiver is genuinely demanding, and the anxiety visible in the original post reads more like a response to that stress than a true financial emergency. A certified financial planner could model the specific numbers, run projections on the Roth versus traditional split, and quantify the RMD exposure decades out. That conversation would almost certainly be more productive than threading through forum comments, and it would free up mental bandwidth for what is actually demanding attention right now.

Editor’s note: This update added the current 2025 401(k) and 403(b) employee contribution limit of $23,500 and the 2026 figure of $24,500, specified the two-year correction window under which a missed RMD penalty drops from 25% to 10% per IRS SECURE 2.0 rules, and incorporated Vanguard’s “How America Saves 2025” data showing the average 401(k) balance reached $148,153 and the median $38,176 in 2024.