In September, I start my first real job (hooray for me!). Although I'm excited to be working and making a considerable amount more money, I'm worried that as a twenty-something who still lives at home, I'm going to take this new surplus of money and do stupid shit with it. I talked to my parents, and they recommended opening a 401(k) [Sidenote: Did you know the term '401(k)' comes from the section is the US tax code for which the eponymous entity appears? FASCINATING!]
The idea of a 401(k) is not only completely foreign to me, but it scares the hell out of me. And to make matters worse, there's different kinds of 401(k)s; Traditional and Roth, and you can only choose one. I feel like I'm at the beginning of Pokemon, and Prof. Oak (my tax agent) is making me pick my starter. How the hell should I know what water-based pokemon (the Roth 401(k) beats? Well, apparently it's fire (delayed taxes upon distribution). Yeah, I dunno, that metaphor starting losing stea--well, this whole post started losing steam. As soon as I decided to write about 401(k)s. And even now I feel like
Since you (we) are still very young to be opening 402k I suggest a Roth. This way you will be able to borrow money from it, without penalty, should you need it to say: put a down payment on a house or car, or finance the continuation of your education.
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