<prompt> Human: I checked the company policy and it takes 3 years for the matched funds to be mine, I currently put in the max 4 of my paycheck and they match 50 of that. I also put about 4000 into my Roth IRA each year. Im not miserable at my job but I want to switch to a better environmentcompany in 2-3 years, not sure if I can hold out for 3 though... Thoughts?  <response>: Your contribution is tax-deferred. Its only the match that youre not fully vested in yet. If you leave before that, youll lose the employers contribution, but not your own, which will be earning tax-deferred. So if you believe its a good thing to put money into tax-deferred retirement account, you should contribute to your 401k even if you wont get the match. You could contribute 1500 less to 401k and 1500 more to Roth if you wanted to, but it doesnt have much practical difference. An argument for at least getting the company match is that in the event you do stay for 3 years, you would get all of the company contribution. 