<prompt> Human: Hey guys, quick question on savings philosophy. My organization has a 100 401k match up to 10 of salary, which is fantastic, but it also means I have to defer a lot of money each paycheck. Im currently deferring 10 roth to get the match, but as a result we really arent able to save each month.My girlfriend is currently an unpaid intern, so were a single income household at the moment. I make 40k, but we live in DC, so that doesnt go very far. We were lucky enough to get a rent controlled apartment, so our rent is only 1100, but thats still half of my monthly pay. We also pay for utilities, which come to about 200. So our monthly housing costs are about 1300 or 58 of my take home salary.We dont really have any designated emergency fund. We do have a cash buffer of about 6.7k which is budgeted towards the next month and a halfs expenses I use YNAB to budget so we wouldnt immediately sink if I lost my job, but it still feels precarious. My girlfriend also unfortunately has 2k in credit card debt that I didnt know about previously, so we are working on paying that off this month. Other than that we arent putting on revolving credit card debt to survive, we just arent able to save and are essentially paycheck to paycheck.If all goes well I will get promoted to a 50k position at the end of the year and my girlfriend will get a job next September when she graduates law school, but those are tenuous at best.Do you think we should bump down that 401k contribution to build up an emergency fund? Or do you think we are okay to keep treading water like this until she gets a job as well?Edit: Im 23 and am still in school for my Masters. Ill probably graduate either next spring or next summer. There may be an additional promotion after my graduation, but a position would have to open up or Id have to switch organizations, so Im not counting on it.  <response>: 10 of your salary gets doubled by contributing to the plan. You make 40k, but committing 4k to the plan gets you another 4k from the employer. You should not pass this up if remotely possible. 