<prompt> Human: My employer and all previous only allow me to specify a whole number percentage of my salary for 401k contributions. To max out my 401k, I would need to do something like 17. However this will leave me slightly short by a few hundred...so how does one practically max out their 401k? Do you just shoot to get as close as you can without going over? Or do you go over and then withdraw the excess as soon as administratively possible in the new year?  <response>: IMPORTANT related note for higher earners, if your company matches and youre maxing your 401k by dollar limit:Unless your company offers a true-up most dont, you need to spread your contributions out through the year, otherwise youll miss your max match. This is bc companies match on a paycheck basis, so if you put 17 into your 401K and max out in Septemberand say your company matches 1, you lose your match for October through December. You can easily lose out on hundredsthousands of dollars in otherwise free matching if you dont work that out. The simple solution is to lower your contribution so you hit the total dollar limit in your last paycheck. More detailed discussion here 