<prompt> Human: Concerning 401k investing vs. investing part of ones own paycheck into the stock market. Assume you are extremely self-disciplined, and plan on retiring way before 59.5 years old.Youre 25. Assume you start contributing 1000annually ignore matching from your pretax salary into a 401k. Year 10 youre 35 years old, and that 1000 annually at 5 has grown to 13,207. You take everything out, and are taxed as income plus 10. say total tax amount is 3010 40. Thats 5282 you pay in taxes, leaving 7924 in your pocket post-tax.If you took that same 1000 annually to invest in stocks through a broker assume zero broker fees, hes a pal. That 1000-worth of salary is actually worth 700 post-tax. 10 years of 700 gets you 9,245 with a 5 interest average. This number is around 15 higher than the 401k route, which I doubt management fees would eat up much of.1 Did I miss something or am I correct that in this case above, its more profitable to invest your after-tax income instead of a 401k, if withdrawing from the account after 10 years at age 35? Scenario 2:Company matching comes into play, 50 cents match for up to 6 of salary. You make 75,000 at age 25. You then invest 15250 pretax income annually companys max match of 2250 17500 which s the maximum annual 401k contribution amount. Do this for 10 years. Your companys contributions equal 231,000 after 10 years with 5 interest assumed. If you withdraw, aged 35, say youre penalized 42 with income tax including the 10 penalty. That leaves you with 133,980 in your pocket.If you took your 15250 pretax income you invested annually, thats around 11200 post-tax contributed to your personal investments through your broker pal, say you pay him 1; all in all you invest 11050 annually. That gives 145,000. This is still higher than the 401k scenario even with matching.2 Again, did I miss something? You lose liquidity with the 401k and lose 10 of the total if withdrawn. I dont understand its merits for someone who is going to withdraw within 10-15 years if starting in mid 20s. EDITEDIT:Reason for such a scenario where Id draw out early is mostly just my curiosity. I have a low 600s FICO from poor financial decisions in college. I believe owning real estate rental property is a great investment in my area, and would be a great step to get to where I want to be financially in 20-25 years. I make much more than I need for my emergency funds, living costs, and dont want to have my money sit in a savings account while I accrue necessary funds for real estate down payments, thus wanted to see what I was losing where by investing pre-tax wmatching VS. post-tax  <response>: Why would you plan to withdraw from a retirement account at 35? 