How 401(K) Sprints Can Make You A Multi-Millionaire (By AGE!)

In this episode of The Personal Finance Podcast, Andrew introduces the 401k Sprint strategy—a game-changing approach where you max out retirement contributions for just 5-10 years instead of grinding for 30-40 years straight, proving that a 25-year-old who contributes $23,500 annually for only 5 years can retire with over $2 million while someone starting at 60 can still add $430,000 in just 5 years using catch-up contributions. He breaks down the exact numbers for sprints starting in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, explains the difference between traditional and Roth 401k strategies, and shows why the 2-on/2-off cycle approach (maxing contributions for 2 years, taking 2 years off, and repeating) can still build nearly $3 million by retirement—proving that short bursts of intense saving combined with compound growth can beat decades of mediocre contributions. Watch this episode on Youtube. How Andrew Can Help You: Listen to The Business Show here. Don't let another year pass by without making significant strides toward your dreams. "Master Your Money Goals" is your pathway to a future where your aspirations are not just wishes but realities. Enroll now and make this year count! Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Learn to invest by joining Index Fund Pro! This is Andrew’s course teaching you how to invest! Watch The Master Money Youtube Channel! , Ask Andrew a question on Instagram or TikTok Learn how to get out of Debt by joining our Free Course Leave Feedback or Episode Requests here. Car buying Calculator here Thanks to Our Amazing Sponsors for supporting The Personal Finance Podcast DELL: Get a new Dell AI PC starting at $749.99, at Dell.com/ai-pc Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/personalfinance Acorns: Start investing automatically with Acorns and get a $5 bonus at Acorns.com/PFP Chime: Start your credit journey with Chime. Sign-up takes only two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ Thanks to Policy Genius for Sponsoring the show! Go to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Shopify: Shopify makes it so easy to sell. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/pfp Go to https://joindeleteme.com/PFP20/ and Use Promo Code PFP for 20% off! Relevant Episodes: Should You Stop Using a Roth 401(k) After a Certain Income? (Money Q&A) What to Do With Your Old 401(K) (Step-By-Step!) Should I reduce my 401(K) Contributions to Save for a House? - Money Q&A Connect With Andrew on Social Media: Instagram TikTok Twitter Master Money Website Master Money Youtube Channel Free Guides: The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money How to Negotiate Your Salary The 75 Day Money Challenge Get out Of Debt Fast Take the Money Personality Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Andrew Giancola?

  When I started the Personal Finance Podcast, I had no idea how big it could become. I just knew I had something I wanted to share, so I started putting it online. And looking back, I definitely wish I would have started a decade earlier. One of the horror parts about building something online, though, is making it look professional. A website used to mean hiring a developer, figuring out design, and potentially spending thousands of dollars. In fact, on my website, I spent tens of thousands of dollars. That's what impressed me when playing around with Hostinger's AI Website Builder. I told it what kind of website I wanted, and I built the first version in minutes. No coding, no designer or developer needed. And Hostinger doesn't stop at launch.

• 0:44Andrew Giancola?

  Their AI can help with SEO, website copy, email marketing, and more. Plus, your domain, website, email, and marketing can all live in one account, with plans starting at just $3 every single month. Hostinger builds your vision step by step. Create your website today. Go to hostinger.com/pfp and use code PFP for 10% off now. Now, if you watch this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube, you've probably noticed the wood slat walls behind us. We wanted this podcast set to look professional, but also not be a project that was overly complicated. And I found these slat walls on Wayfair, and it completely changed this space. And it's now basically the background that you see in every single podcast

• 1:29Andrew Giancola?

  or piece of content that we record. And that's one of the things that I love about Wayfair. You can shop thousands of products across different styles and budgets, use customer photos and reviews to see how things actually look in real homes, and find something that fits your space. They also have Wayfair Verified Products that are hand-vetted by product specialists using a 10-point quality inspection. And with more than 20 million verified 5-star reviews, you can feel a lot more confident about what you're ordering. I've used Wayfair for this studio and our home, and I absolutely recommend them for your space. So transform your space with pieces that hold up to real life. Join Wayfair Rewards today and get 5% back on every single purchase.

• 2:14Andrew Giancola?

  Head to wayfair.com or shop the Wayfair app for all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair: Every Style, Every Home.

• 2:28Andrew Giancola?

  On this episode of the personal finance podcast, how 401k sprints can make you a multimillionaire. And this is by age.

• 2:54Andrew Giancola?

  What's up everybody and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, founder of mastermoney.co. And today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be talking through how 401k sprints can make you a multimillionaire. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the master money newsletter by going to mastermoney.co/newsletter and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast on. And if you want to hop out the show, consider leaving a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Now today, we're going to be diving into what we call 401k sprints. And I'm going to be introducing this new concept that I think is going to be freeing

• 3:38Andrew Giancola?

  for a lot of you out there because you are going to learn that maybe I don't have to be super disciplined for the rest of my life. Maybe if I get hyper focused for short periods of time, I can then build a tremendous amount of wealth, be on track to retire and do anything I want in my life. Because you are pursuing financial freedom. That is why we are trying to ensure that we are saving for retirement and getting our money right. So that we have either the option to leave a job or we can leave a job that we absolutely hate. So freedom is the goal and we're going to talk through some of these 401k sprints. Now you've most likely never heard of a 401k sprint. And this is a term that we have come up with talking through some of these focused and intentional periods that are for shorter periods of time, usually anywhere from five to 10 years.

• 4:22Andrew Giancola?

  But I'm going to give you a bunch of options in this episode today where you go all in on maxing out your retirement contributions, knowing that you won't necessarily be sustainable for long term, but you're going all in for a shorter period of time and trying to save aggressively during that timeframe. Instead of having to save extremely aggressively and trying to max out those accounts for 30 to 40 years, you may have a specific goal and you kind of know where your retirement number is going to be. And so you're willing to pick a window of time where you're going to get ultra disciplined. You and your family are going to buckle down and you're going to start to save in these retirement accounts, max those puppies out, and then from there, let compound interest to do all the heavy lifting for you. Now, the power of compound interest is absolutely amazing. We're going to show you some of the calculations today in this episode on how cool this is.

• 5:05Andrew Giancola?

  Now, what this does is it flips traditional retirement ideas on its head. Meaning, instead of you just saving a small amount over time, which is a tremendous way to save for retirement, but instead of you saving those small amounts every single year over time, you choose the sprint periods and you can have these short bursts of intensity that allow you, if done correctly, to have massive long-term results. Now, here's how this works in practice, okay? You pick your sprint period. Maybe your sprint period is even less than five years. Maybe it's five years, maybe it's seven years, maybe it's 10 years, or maybe you even want to just do a couple of years to get the ball rolling when it comes to getting your financial life right. Now, during that time, what is going to happen is you're going to contribute the maximum amount allowed into your 401k

• 5:49Andrew Giancola?

  or similar accounts like your 403B, your 457, your TSP, depending on what your employer-sponsored plans are at where you work. Now, once the sprint is over, you could then either pause or reduce your contributions, or just stick to the employer match if you wanted to, if it will keep you on target to hit your retirement number. But your invested money continues to compound for decades. So you got these dollars into these retirement accounts. They're going to continuously compound over time. Now, some people may be saying, well, isn't this just coast fire? No, this is a little bit different than coast fire because you're picking a very short timeframe to do some of these sprints. And then you're going to either decide, do you want to continue investing? And/or do you want to take a break for a certain period of time? So maybe you do a couple of years on, a couple of years off.

• 6:31Andrew Giancola?

  We'll talk about those scenarios too, and it'll be more flexible for a lot more people out there. So, some people may never have to contribute again. If you get really intense for five, seven, or 10 years, you may be at the point in time where you never have to contribute again. But if you are out there and you're saying- To yourself, well, I just want to do a couple of years at a time, or maybe I want to do one year on, one year off, but I want to get really intense for those one years on, then you can do that for sure. Now, the secret behind these 401k sprints is the time value of money. This is what I want every single person out there to understand. The earlier and the more aggressive you get with these 401k sprints, the more time you have for these contributions to grow exponentially. So every single dollar that you invest in your twenties or thirties can be worth 10 to 20 times more

• 7:17Andrew Giancola?

  in the future if you get those dollars working right now. So this is why I want a lot of young people out there listening. If you can figure out ways to do some of these 401k sprints early on in your investing journey, those dollars are going to be so much more valuable than someone who has to start in their 40s or 50s. You have no idea how valuable this is going to be. And you're going to see in these examples today, as we go through it, how valuable these dollars truly are. You have the opportunity to absolutely change your financial life just by going after some of these 401k sprints. Now, what are some examples of people who would actually be interested in a 401k sprint? One is before a major life change. So let's say, for example, you just get married. For example, my wife and I, when we got married, we knew we wanted to have kids later on down the line. During that timeframe, we decided, ooh,

• 8:01Andrew Giancola?

  we're going to have some extra income, some disposable income. We're dinks, we have dual income, no kids during that timeframe. So maybe we should try to save as much as we possibly can during this time. And then when kids come along, obviously, things are going to get a little more expensive. So major life changes is going to be really, really powerful. Or maybe, you know, in a couple of years, you want to buy a house. You want to go really hard and make sure you're hitting those retirement accounts before you go out and buy a house. Or maybe you know retirement's coming down the road in 10 years and you need to get the ball rolling. You're in your 50s, you want to make sure that you have a great retirement. That's a great reason. Or maybe you feel like you're late to the retirement game. You're in your late 50s, early 60s, and you need to get the ball started. That is another great reason. Or maybe your kids finally left the house. You're in your 40s, maybe your early 50s. These major life changes are happening.

• 8:46Andrew Giancola?

  They finally went away to college, they're on their own now, and now you have some extra income and you want to do a 401k sprint as well. There's so many different reasons and major life changes that could be happening. Secondly, is a career peak. Let's say for Example, you got a big raise, you got a big promotion, and you've got these extra dollars coming in. And you want to make sure that you are taking advantage of all the hard work that you are taking on. Meaning, you're working hard day in and day out at your day job. You don't want this money to just get wasted away. You're not working hard for no reason. You're not working hard to buy a depreciating asset like a car that goes down in value every single year. Instead, you want to make sure that you're preserving this so that you can buy your freedom back. If that's you, that's another great reason. Or, maybe you're just early on in your career. You want to live lean in your twenties, or you want to live lean in your thirties and try to get some of these extra dollars working

• 9:31Andrew Giancola?

  so that you can retire when you want, instead of trying to worry about this later on in life. Or, you just want to do a balance. We're going to talk about two on and two off sprints. And you want to have a balanced approach to saving, but you also want to live life a little bit. And so, you want to come up with some ideas on how you can do that. It's not about just saving every year, but you can have these short bursts of intense savings that allows you to become financially independent. Now, first, before we talk through the 401K, I want to make sure that everybody understands what a 401K is. This is an employer-sponsored plan that you have through your workplace typically. And/or, if you're self-employed, you can look at a solo 401K. Or, for those out there, there's also Roth 401Ks. And so, we're going to go through each and every single one of these. So, the contribution limits of 2025, which is the time I'm recording this,

• 10:14Andrew Giancola?

  is $23,500 for anybody under the age of 50. That's what they can contribute to their 401K. Now, if you're between the ages of 50 and 59, you can contribute up to $31,000 because this includes something called a catch-up contribution. Now, the catch-up contribution is $7,500 this year. And the beautiful thing about these are that they are going up every single year. Now, there is a new catch-up contribution that's called the Super Catch-Up Contribution, thanks to Secure Act 2.0. So, people between ages 60 to 63 can contribute $34,750. That is something that is pretty new and a great option for folks who are late to the game. Now, these apply across all.

• 10:58Andrew Giancola?

  So, the traditional 401K, the Roth 401K, a 403B, a 457, a TSP, etc. All of those accounts- This will apply to across the board. Ketchup contributions, by the way, for those of you who can take advantage of those are such a powerful tool because they allow you to get extra dollars into these accounts without having to worry so much. You can accelerate your path to wealth even late in the game. So ketchup contributions are another great reason to do a sprint. Let's say you do an early sprint in your twenties and then you do a sprint, maybe you do a couple of years sprint in your thirties, then you do another sprint in your forties and then when you hit your fifties, if you have those ketchup contributions, getting more dollars in there, man, it's going to be a powerful, powerful tool that you can use.

• 11:41Andrew Giancola?

  Now, what is the difference between a traditional versus a Roth 401k? This is very important to note for most people because the tax treatment truly, truly matters. And so you need to understand your tax situation and I highly recommend if you have a CPA, go to your CPA and say, hey, which one is better for my financial situation right now? So a traditional 401k, it means you're contributing with pre-tax contributions. Okay. So you get a tax deduction today, meaning your money grows tax deferred in a traditional 401k and then it's taxed as ordinary income in retirement when you withdraw those contributions. Now, the hope is you have a lower income possibly in retirement and so typically you may get a favorable tax treatment if that were the case. Now, secondarily though, is the Roth 401k. Now, the Roth 401k is an amazing account because of tax-free growth.

• 12:26Andrew Giancola?

  So this is post-tax contributions, meaning your money's already been taxed and you contribute money to the Roth 401k, but the difference is the money in the Roth 401k grows tax-free and you can pull the money out tax-free. Now, one big caveat with the Roth 401k that is very, very powerful is there are no RMDs in a Roth 401k, no required minimum distributions in this Roth 401k. Very important to note because in a traditional 401k or a traditional 457 or 403B, all of those are going to have required minimum distributions where you have to pull money from that account. The IRS says, hey, I want you to pay taxes at some point in time on this money. So you're going to be required to pull money out of these accounts and so you need to understand that. Now, how do you decide between the two?

• 13:09Andrew Giancola?

  First, number one, always talk to your CPA or if you have a financial advisor in your corner, talk to them and have them look at your tax situation. Very, very important, but some General rules of thumb, if you expect to be in a lower tax bracket in retirement, a traditional could be a great option. But if you expect to be in a higher or similar tax bracket, a Roth is a great option. Now, here's the powerful thing. We've talked about this a number of times. Let's say, for example, you max out a Roth 401k for 40 years. If you did that at a 10% rate of return, guess what's going to happen there? You're going to have about $10 million in that Roth 401k because it's incredible what happens when you max these accounts out. But here's the powerful part, about $9 million in that Roth 401k is completely tax-free because they have that tax-free growth. So you really want to make sure that you're not taking this decision lightly.

• 13:55Andrew Giancola?

  You've got to look at your situation and decide between the two. And you can also do a hybrid strategy. You can split contributions between both to hedge tax risk if you wanted to go that route, too. So, a lot of great stuff here as we go through this. Now, I'm going to go through the different types of sprints that we're going to be talking about in this episode. And then we will go through examples of those sprints by age. Because I love to give you guys examples. I want you to see what it would look like if you're in your 20s and you started to do a sprint. Or if you're in your 40s and you started to do a sprint. What is this going to look like? And how much would you actually have in retirement based on specific rates of return? So first, I'm going to explain all the sprints that we're going to go through. And then we're going to talk through this by age.

• 14:35Andrew Giancola?

  All right, so I'm going to give you a bunch of different sprint strategies. So the first one we're going to be talking through is something called the five-year sprint. Now, a five-year sprint, meanings you are going as hard as you possibly can for five straight years, trying to max out contributions in your retirement accounts and trying to just shove as much money as you possibly can in those retirement accounts. Now, there's a number of different things that you can look at here. Now, for example, if you started at age 25 and you aggressively max out your contributions for five years and then stop, by age 65, you'd have $1.5 million. So just for contributing and maxing it out for five years, you'd have 1.5. And another example is if you started at age 30, you'd have 1.4. Another example is if you started at age 40, you'd have $743,000. So early sprints equals maximum compounding power.

• 15:18Andrew Giancola?

  But these five-year sprints are something we're going to look at by age. Then there's the seven-year sprint. So if you're someone who is saying to yourself, nah, that's not enough money when we reach that point in time. We get to say 1.5 million dollars. I want to have a lot more in retirement than then. We can look at a seven year sprint and we're going to look at this middle ground to see what the difference is. Next is a 10 year sprint. Now, this is one, a lot of people in the financial independence space who are trying to retire as fast as they possibly can. They will look at these 10 year sprints and people have become completely financially independent by just really going hard for 10 years. We'll do an entire episode talking through how to become financially independent in 10 years or less because it's a very important concept that I think a lot of people are looking to do. They want to become financially independent as fast as possible. What does that look like?

• 16:03Andrew Giancola?

  And then we're also going to talk about the two on, two off cycle. So the two on, two off cycle is going to look like this. You go really hard for two years and you max out contributions in your retirement accounts. Then you take your foot off the gas. You can either ease off for two years and or reduce your contributions to zero for two years. And then you repeat this over and over again. So this is going to allow you to A, max out contributions in certain years where you know you can go hard. You have some extra dollars on hand. Maybe you just got a raise and you're going to feel it as much. And so you can get those extra contributions into those accounts. And then some other years, maybe you're taking the foot off the gas. Now, what are some examples of people who would do a two on, two off? So maybe, for example, you know, you get a big bonus at the end of every year. And so some years you want to take that bonus and you want to enjoy the money.

• 16:47Andrew Giancola?

  And then some years you want to take that bonus and you want to make sure you're maxing out your retirement accounts so that you can prioritize freedom. That's a great example. Or when you get a tax return every year, let's say you get a bigger tax return every single year. When that money comes in, you could decide one of two things. Do I want to max out the rest of these accounts? With this tax return or do I want to spend this on something that brings me value? Now, when it comes to financial windfalls, the balanced approach to those is to do the 50 50 method, meaning 50% goes to you and you could spend it on whatever you want. And 50% goes to future you and you can put it towards retirement, emergency fund, those types of things. That's the balanced approach that I like to take. But for some of you who want to do some sprints, you're going to want to take these financial windfalls and stuff them into as many investment accounts as you possibly can during those sprint periods.

• 17:30Andrew Giancola?

  And so for some of you there, a balanced approach of two on, two off might be the best ways to go. Now, this is going to emphasize that consistency over time. Can lead to massive results if you do two on, two off. So these are the different cycles I'm going to talk about. You can creatively come up with 401k sprints that matches what your lifestyle is as well. So think through this, maybe you want to do six months on, six months off throughout the year. And you want to split the year into two. Maybe you want to do one quarter on, one quarter off, and you want to split the year up. So you have enjoyment times and you have buckle down times where your family really buckles down. All of these can be ways that you can creatively come up with this. And so if you have some new ideas as we go through this by age, I want to hear them. I want to hear what you plan on doing. And if you plan on doing some of these sprints, leave them in the comments on YouTube or Spotify.

• 18:15Andrew Giancola?

  And/or you can send them over to me via email as well. But I want to hear what type of sprints you are considering doing. Now let's get in to some scenarios of 401k sprints by age.

• 18:27Andrew Giancola?

  One thing I've learned from running multiple businesses is there's usually a gap between how you think work is getting done and how it's actually getting done. And we've had times where we thought we knew the bottleneck, only to realize later, the real issue was somewhere completely different. That's exactly what today's sponsor, Scribe, helps solve. Scribe is a workflow AI platform trusted by 94% of the Fortune 500. And Scribe Optimize turns real workflow data into decisions your AI strategy actually needs, automatically capturing how work happens across approved apps, surfacing inefficiency and opportunities with no interviews and no manual discovery and no extra work from your team, which is the key.

• 19:10Andrew Giancola?

  And the live dashboard shows where work is happening, how much time it's taking and where the biggest opportunities are right now. It automatically discovers workflows across multiple tools, then highlights your biggest inefficiencies and gives AI-powered recommendations with estimated time-saving. You know, I love saving time. It's also built with privacy in mind. It only runs across approved business applications. User-level data is anonymous by default and sensitive information is automatically redacted and never leaves your firewall. To see optimization action, head describe how slash PFP and mention PFP for a 30-day risk-free trial.

• 19:48Andrew Giancola?

  That's S C R I B E dot H O W slash P F P. If you've heard any recent episode of Health Corner, you know that I have spent the last few years trying to optimize my sleep. I've tried sleep trackers, cooling my room, changing my nighttime routine, all the different things, but nothing really matters as much as having the right mattress. And that's one of the reasons I love Leesa. A great mattress is one of those things that you use every single night and you spend a third of your life sleeping. And it can make a huge difference on how you feel the next day. Leesa has mattresses designed for different sleep positions and comfort preferences. And their sleep quiz can help you get matched in less than two minutes.

• 20:32Andrew Giancola?

  Plus, they're designed and they're assembled in the USA and they come with free shipping, easy returns and a 120 night free sleep trial. So go to leesa.com for up to 30% off mattress plus and get an extra $50 off with promo code P F P. Exclusive for my listeners. That's L E E S A dot com promo code P F P for 30% off mattresses plus an extra $50 off. Let them know we sent you in the survey after checkout. Leesa.com promo code P F P. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know it's not just me anymore. It takes a great team behind the scenes to make everything happen. And if I had to hire someone tomorrow,

• 21:16Andrew Giancola?

  I'd want someone who could jump right in and make an impact. That's why I'd use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. When workplace chaos hits, Indeed Sponsored Jobs helps you reach qualified candidates faster. Your job gets boosted in search results, so you're spending less time searching and more time interviewing the right people. Plus, you only pay for results, which I absolutely love. Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored posts. That's a huge advantage when you're trying to grow your business. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all of your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you

• 24:08Andrew Giancola?

  Sixty bucks depending on where you invest those dollars. And so making sure you just have the understanding of opportunity costs and the trade offs here can be really, really important. Now let's dive into this. I'm going to give you the assumptions that we have in this episode. And you can run these simulations based on how you want to do this too. So we did the annual return for all of these at eight percent rate of return. And try to keep a balanced rate of return as we went through this. The annual contribution for 2025 is $23,500. That is how much we are putting in for these sprints. The starting balance is zero dollars. So this person, when we go through these scenarios, they have no dollars invested yet. So if you already have some money invested, you're going to be ahead of the curve compared to some of these examples.

• 24:47Andrew Giancola?

  Also, the employer match is excluded in these examples. So if you do get an employer match that is excluded, which is also icing on top. There's the steak and the sizzle. And what we're talking through today is we're talking to the steak. All these extra things added on top are the sizzle for you that are going to help you improve your situation as time goes on. Also, the contributions will stop after the sprint period. I want you to note that. So if it's a five year sprint, after five years, you stop contributing based on these scenarios to make this as accurate as possible. And then when we go through this, you can think of this in your Roth or you can think of this through your traditional. So first, we're going to do a five year sprint starting at age 25. So age 25 to age 30, where you do a five year sprint.

• 25:29Andrew Giancola?

  And your total contributions are going to be $23,500 per year. That's over the course of five years. So you're contributing $117,500. So at the age of 65, if you did this, just a five year sprint, didn't add any more money, just remember all the assumptions. Your balance would be $2,038,000 by the time you retire. That means your growth is going to be $1.9 million worth of growth over that timeframe. So if you look at the 4% rule and you withdrew 4%, which is going to be something we're going to be challenging in future episodes here. But when we look at the 4% rule, that means you could withdraw $81,535 per year in retirement if you want to do this. Doesn't count social security or anything else that you could have.

• 26:09Andrew Giancola?

  $81,535 per year, just for five years of buckling down in your twenties. That is absolutely incredible. That is how powerful compound interest can be for you by putting $117,000 in this account. So you get to your first 100K. This is why I tell you as early as possible, get to your first 100K. Because this is going to change your financial life if you can do it early and often. Now let's look at a seven year sprint where you go from age 25 to age 31. Okay. So your total contributions during that timeframe is going to be $164,500. So you're adding two extra years here. Your final balance at 65 is $2,766,000. So you do this for two years longer and guess what?

• 26:51Andrew Giancola?

  You have $766,000 more just by buckling down for two more years. And your contributions are going to be about an extra 50 grand, right around there roughly. Now your growth is $2,601. So if you had this in a Roth 401k, you'd have $2.6 million that you could have grown completely tax free. Hugely powerful. Okay. And with the 4% rule, it's $110,654 is what you could spend every single year. Not counting social security, not counting pensions, not counting any other income you have. If you have rental income or any of that other stuff, that is how much you'd be able to withdraw with 4%. Maybe you want to go 5%. That is coming up on another episode. 10 year sprint. So if you're in your twenties, you want to do a 10 year sprint or age 25 to 35.

• 27:34Andrew Giancola?

  Let's talk about it. Total contributions $23,500. Okay. And so you have contributed in total $235,000. Now, the cool thing is most likely during that 10 years, the IRS is going to increase those contribution limits because they start to increase those limits when inflation happens and a lot of other different factors. And so that is something where you actually will probably even have more in there as time goes on. Your final balance at age 65 would be $3.988 million. Over $1.2 million more than the seven year sprint because you got started from age 25 to 35. So let's just say, for example, that you decide, I'm going to do this. I'm 25 now. I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure I can earn $23,500 extra in order to put in these accounts for 10 years.

• 28:18Andrew Giancola?

  Because I want to make sure that I have almost $4 million in this account by the time I retire. Really, really powerful stuff. Why is this powerful? Because if you get this started early, this is not contributing enough. Another dollar later on, you could coast the rest of the way if you want to. This is why coast fire and that movement is so powerful. But this is going to give you more flexibility. Now, the growth on that is $3,753,000. So again, in a Roth 401k, that would be the growth completely tax-free. Really cool stuff. And then with the 4% rule, you can withdraw $159,555. Now, let's go one more in the 20s, which is the two-on-two-off strategy. Okay, so two-on-two-off, meaning you're contributing for two years. You skip two and you repeat five times for 10 years total. Contributions are over 20 years.

• 29:02Andrew Giancola?

  Okay, so you're going to do this 10 years of contributing money to your Roth 401k and 10 years not contributing money. So that means your total contributions are going to be $235,000. And your final balance, because you're two-on-two-off, is $2.931 million. So look at the difference there. A 10-year sprint where you don't do two-on-two-off, you're going to be contributing the same amount of money, $235,000 into this account. But if you did the 10-year sprint earlier, you would have $3.988 million. But if you did two-on-two-off, you would only have $2.9 million, which is still a great outcome, but it's a million-dollar difference if you did the sprint early on and got your money invested early and often. Very important to note, because getting dollars invested early

• 29:47Andrew Giancola?

  is just one of the most powerful things. This is why we talk about this. Time is your greatest ally when it comes to investing. Now, even if you don't have a lot of time, we're going to talk about that in a second here. If you're in your 40s, if you're in your 50s, getting those investment accounts maxed out is still really powerful and we're going to show you here next. So let's jump into the 30s next. All right, so if you're in your 30s, then we have something that we are looking at here for this scenario. We're going to assume the same exact stuff, okay? So we're going to assume 8% compounded annually in your 30s. We're going to assume the annual contributions are $23,500. Now, we're also going to look at the median investable assets for someone age 30 from the Federal Reserve data. And we're going to look at this and say, okay, well, the median investable assets

• 30:31Andrew Giancola?

  for someone in their mid-30s is $37,000, according to the Federal Reserve. So we're going to assume you have 37. Thousand dollars to make this realistic employer match in your 30s is going to be excluded and contribution stop after your sprint period again. So same exact thing as last time, except we're going to assume that you have a starting balance somewhat in your 401k. So a lot of you out there who are in your 30s, you started investing. If you haven't started investing yet, that's completely okay. We'll get started now. Now for a five year sprint for someone, again, we know how much we're contributing 117,500. If you started between age 30 to 35, your final balance would be 1,786,000. So let's think about this for a second. Okay,

• 31:11Andrew Giancola?

  so this person started five years later than the person who started at age 25 and starting five years later actually is going to cost them about 300,000. Okay. Which is a big, big difference in that growth because at least they still got that sprint early and often, but they already had 37,000 invested. And so because they had a little bit invested, this grew still a 300,000 difference. It'd be a much larger difference if you had a zero dollar balance. Now, the seven year sprint is going to be something where we're going to contribute 164,500 in your 30s. Okay. And your final balance is going to be 2.281 million dollars, meaning with the 4% rule, you can withdraw 91,263,000. So if you're someone in your 30s and you're saying to yourself,

• 31:56Andrew Giancola?

  okay, I'm getting started at age 30. I feel like I'm behind, but you're not really. When you're in your 30s, you have so much time left. So many people in their 30s come to me and say, I didn't start yet. What do I do? And they start to panic. You are not behind. You are going to be okay. And you have so much time for your money to compound that you should not worry. It is never too late to get started investing. I don't care if you're 40s. I don't care if you're in your 50s. You can still right the ship. And so that's what this episode is trying to show you is you can right the ship. You just gotta buckle down a little bit. And that's okay if you have to buckle down a little bit. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices, but discipline, when it comes to your finances, the way I define discipline is that you are putting your future self ahead of your current self. And so if you can do that just for a couple of years, it can make a massive

• 32:41Andrew Giancola?

  difference. Now, when you're in your 30s, I know you're in the messy middle. You maybe are getting married. You maybe are having kids. Maybe you have multiple kids in daycare. And it gets harder and harder as time goes on. That's okay. If we can find some years where we can hit some sprints, it's going to massively change your retirement plan over the course of the long run. Now, let's say you took your entire 30s and you decided, I'm going to sprint my entire 30s from age 30 all the way down to 3940. Okay. So your total contributions there would be $235,000 and your final balance at age 65 would be $3 million, meaning you could withdraw $122,291,000. And the growth of your money is still $2.8 million. So your money made you $2.8 million without you having to go in and work every single day. Really powerful stuff.

• 33:26Andrew Giancola?

  Your money can work way harder than you ever can. And so I want you to remember that and get those dollars working. If you did that over the course of 20 years, you have $2.32 million and you'd be able to withdraw $92,000. So folks in your 30s, I want you to look at some of these takeaways here. Okay. Even with just five years of intense saving in your 30s, you can still hit nearly $1.8 million. That's number one takeaway I want you to think about. Number two, a 10 year sprint pushes you to $3 million despite starting with only $37,000. Really powerful stuff because for 10 years you buckle down. You have $37,000 in that account. You buckle down, boom, get to that point in time where you're making big progress and all of a sudden it changes your life. Two on and two off still nets you $2.3 million,

• 34:11Andrew Giancola?

  proving that flexibility doesn't kill your retirement plan if you want to have a little more flexibility. But one thing to note is the later you start, the more you need to contribute in order to hit the same retirement goal for someone in their 20s when they started earlier than you. They don't have to work as hard as you do in your 30s, but that's okay. Because in your 30s, you're likely going to be earning more money. You're going to have the ability to get these dollars working and investing. Next, we're going to talk about the 40s. All right, in your 40s, here are some of the assumptions that we are going to look at. 8% return again. Annual contribution is going to be maxing out at $23,500. The starting balance is going to be what the Federal Reserve data shows is the median investable assets for people age 40 and above, which is $58,000 is what they're going to be starting with in your account. And then the employer match is excluded

• 34:55Andrew Giancola?

  and contribution stop after this sprint period, meaning you're not going to Contribute anything else. So just remember this as we go through all these scenarios. If you continue to contribute, these numbers are going to be much higher. But these are for these sprint periods and these shorter gaps that show you now in your 40s. You got a lot of things you got to deal with. You got kids who are getting older. Maybe you got to do a lot of youth sports. Your kids are going to college. You're having a lot of life changes. You have aging parents you have to take care of. And so there's a lot of things that you are dealing with during this decade. But that is okay, because if you could find these sprint periods, if you got started late, it's okay because you're still going to make a tremendous amount of wealth. Watch this. So if you started from age 40 to 45 and you put $23,500 per year, that's $117,000. Your final balance at age 65, this is the first one coming in under a million,

• 35:39Andrew Giancola?

  is $951,567. So with the 4% rule, you can withdraw $38,062. So if you have social security, you have some other income coming in. That's a great starting point is that you at least buckle down for five years and boom, you were able to produce a million dollars in retirement that you can utilize for almost $40,000 per year. Now, this is at an 8% rate of return. The market returns 10%. These numbers are going to be drastically higher. If it returns less, they're going to be lower. But just making sure that we note that, hey, the S and P 500 over the course of the last 30 years has returned close to 10% to investors. But we always want to be conservative when we are planning for retirement. Now, seven year sprint from age 40 to 46, your total contribution would be $164,500.

• 36:21Andrew Giancola?

  And the total amount of money that you would have, your final balance would be $1,184,000, meaning you could withdraw $47,394 if you did a seven year sprint. That, my friends, is a much better number, I think, than a five year sprint. So if you're in your 40s and you want to have a better retirement, I would sprint longer if you could. Because since you're starting late, you just got to work a little harder and you got to contribute more money for longer periods of time. Honestly, if you're going to do this, I would also continue to contribute after this. But the sprint is just to get you started, to get that bulk going. Now, for a 10 year sprint, you would contribute again $235,000 and your final balance at age 65 would be $1.5 million, meaning you could withdraw $62,183 per year with the 4% rule.

• 37:06Andrew Giancola?

  And the growth of your money is going to be 1.3%. Million dollars. So still a tremendous amount of money for starting in your 40s. And because of this, it can be very, very powerful. Now think about this. You're going to get to age 50 and all of a sudden, if you decide you want to continue to sprint, you have catch up contributions in your corner. Meaning you can contribute even more money in these accounts than you could in your 40s. And so that's going to allow you to even pick up the pace if you wanted to get to a 3, 5, 7 million dollar retirement. There are extra things that you can do. And then two on and two off, if you did that, your final balance would be 1,313,000 dollars. And the growth would be about a million bucks. And your withdrawal would be 52,522 dollars a year that you withdraw in retirement as your income. So some key takeaways for your 40s. A five year sprint can still get you to 1 million bucks.

• 37:48Andrew Giancola?

  That is really, really cool and a really powerful lesson for a lot of people. It is never too late to get started. A 10 year sprint can get you close to 1.5 million dollars. A huge chunk of retirement funding, even with a shorter compounding runway. So even though your compounding runway is shorter, you can still get to 1.5 million with a 10 year sprint. Two on and two off, still builds 1.3 million dollars. So let's say you realize, oh, I need to get started on retirement. Well, over the course of the next 20 years, two on, two off will still get you to 1.3 million. And the time is shorter. So the contributions are going to matter more in your 40s than for somebody in their 20s. It's going to matter a lot more for you now. And so getting more in is really, really important in buckling down. So next, we're going to jump into the 50s. So in your 50s, a lot of things are going to happen in life.

• 38:33Andrew Giancola?

  A lot of life changes are going to happen. A lot of shifts will happen. You're going to really start to think about retirement. And so you want to make sure that you are taking advantage of these catch up contributions. So in this scenario, we ran it at an 8% rate of return again. Your annual contribution is going to go up. We want to give you that catch up contribution to 31,000 dollars, which is the catch up contribution for 2025 is 7,500 dollars. And so the starting balance, we looked at the Federal Reserve's median balance for people in their 50s, which is 95,000 dollars. And so that's what your starting balance is going to be in these calculations. And then obviously contributions stop after the sprint period and employer match is excluded in this as well. So for a five year sprint, for someone who sprints for five years from age 50 to 55, your total contributions are going to be 150

• 39:18Andrew Giancola?

  $5,000 and your final balance at age 65 would be $492,201 and the growth of your money would be $242,000 and you could withdraw $19,688. So I would highly recommend for those who start in their 50s, if you're starting late, do these sprints for longer. Do them as long as you possibly can so you can get to the point in time where you have a tremendous retirement. Now, if you did it for seven years, your final balance would be $603,000 and the growth of your money would be $386,000. And the 4% withdrawal rule, you could withdraw $24,161 in that scenario. Now with a 10-year sprint, you would have $771,000 and you could withdraw $30,000 per year if you did it from age 50 to 60. And so this is one where if you're starting late,

• 40:03Andrew Giancola?

  I would highly recommend that you do that. Now, some of you may have more contributed on that account already. It's gonna make a big difference if you do, because this is starting with $58,000. If you have 100 grand or maybe a couple hundred grand inside of your 401k already, then this is gonna make a big, big difference to what these numbers actually are. And then two on and two off. So compounding stops at 65 so that all the cycles will complete, but two on, two off would have a final balance of $677,000. And the 4% rule would be $27,100 is what you could withdraw on that money. So some key takeaways is even with five years of maxing out, you can almost have $500,000 added to your nest egg for retirement. That can make a big difference for a lot of people out there. A 10-year sprint gets you close to $800,000. Huge difference for a lot of people out there.

• 40:46Andrew Giancola?

  And even the two on and two off gets you to $680,000 during this scenario. Proof that intensity and time still works in your favor, even if you don't have as much time as you would like. And so this is where I want most people to realize it is never too late to get started. If you're listening to this and your parents haven't caught up, for example, then send this to your parents so they understand that they could still get the ball rolling. Now, we're also gonna do scenarios for the 60s because people need to note that this is going to be something that you could do. So let's look at the 60s. We're gonna do the same rate of return, 8%. The annual contribution is going to be the super ketchup contribution. So $34,750 is what you can contribute. And the starting balance, the medium investable assets for people in their 60s is $145,000. Man, that's tough to hear because it's not enough to retire on.

• 41:31Andrew Giancola?

  And so we're trying to change that right now for all of you and making sure that you get a higher number there. Employer match is excluded on this one, too. And the contributions stop after the sprint. So a five-year sprint from age 60 to 65, meaning that what would happen here? So your total contributions, because you could do $34,750, would be $430,000 in one year of $31,000, meaning it's not, or 60 is when you can start to have that super catch-up contribution. So we're looking at $170,000 invested. The final balance at age 65 would be $430,410. Wow, I mean, I think that is incredible. And that is something where you can still withdraw $17,216. So with a seven-year sprint, the final balance would be $505,000, and you could have $20,000 per year in additional income.

• 42:16Andrew Giancola?

  And a 10-year sprint would be $586,000, and you could withdraw $23,457 per year. Plus, on the two-year, two-off, which I wouldn't recommend in your 60s, this would be from age 60 to 80. And so really, for most people, this isn't going to work for them. But we did the scenario anyway. Your 4% withdrawal rule would be $19,200 per year, which you could have, and your final balance would be $480,000. So there's no reason, if you're in your 60s and getting started, there's no reason to do two on, two off. You need to buckle down and get the ball rolling. So some key takeaways for the 60s. Even with just five years to save, you can still add nearly $430,000, translating to $17,000 per year in retirement. A 10-year sprint gets you close to $600,000, or about $23,000 a year in income.

• 43:00Andrew Giancola?

  And the two on, two off still can get you $20,000 per year, but you got to do it till you're 80, which is tough. So the super catch-up contributions under Secure Act 2.0 are incredibly powerful for people in their 60s. So some final takeaways from this episode that I want everybody to understand as we start to wrap this up, is that your 20s and 30s compounding does the heavy lifting. 40s and 50s, your contributions are going to do a lot of the heavy lifting. And in your 60s, catch-ups and time to income do a lot of the heavy lifting. And so for most of you out there, the earlier you can get started, no matter how old you are, starting today is one of the most powerful things. Now, if you're planning on doing a 401K, Sprint, I want to hear from you. I want to hear what you're doing. Also, if you want to get coached

• 43:42Andrew Giancola?

  live by me, Master Money Academy is the place to be. We have the Wealth Builders Journey in there that can transform your finances through the Wealth Builders Journey. So make sure you look down below. We'll link up Master Money Academy. That is our community of Wealth Builders who are people who are trying to get their finances right. It is a great spot to be if you're doing a sprint. If you want to stay motivated for a sprint, because we do three things there. We coach you up through your finances. Number two, we help you find a community of other people who are doing this as well, who are trying to become financially independent, or trying to become folks who are financially free, or just want to have the option to leave their job if they want to. In addition, we're talking through all kinds of stuff like how to increase your income, how to save more money. There's so many good conversations in Master Money Academy. And then number three, we're there

• 44:25Andrew Giancola?

  to motivate you. We're there to motivate you every single week so that you can stay the course, you can stay disciplined, and you can reward your future self by making better financial decisions. So, would highly encourage every single one of you to check out Master Money Academy down below. It is a place where we are spending lots of time there. I am in there all the time chatting with people, and so it's really, really powerful. Listen, thank you guys so much for being here on this episode. I truly appreciate each and every single one of you. We will see you on the next episode.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  When you shop Kroger Delivery, you can expect the savings you love and fresh groceries delivered right to your door. From delicious produce to everyday essentials, enjoy the convenience of delivery and the trusted selection you've come to know from Kroger. Because bringing you fresh, quality groceries is what we do best. Right now, enjoy free delivery on orders of $50 or more with your digital coupon. Restrictions apply. See site for details. Kroger, fresh for everyone.