<prompt> Human: I was hoping you guys might be able to help me out here. Im 20 and working a decent job. They have a good 401k plan which Im currently contributing as much as they will match. The issue is I dont really know if there is anything I will really be able to do with it.I wont go into a lot of detail, but I have a fairly serious health condition. Realistically I know I wont live to retirement age. The average life span for someone with my condition is 36. The top age would be about 50 which would be a miracle.Im not trying to be a pessimist-but hey you gotta be realistic. I dont want to invest all of this money and never be able to use any of it. Now Ill also say I know changes in medicine can happen and who knows maybe a cure will come out for me, so with that in mind I cant totally omit the idea of retirement. But again, being realistic its not likely that will be the case.With that in mind- Is there anything I can do with my 401k? Ive read what I can about about it and I see there are pretty big penalties for withdrawing early for buying house or whatever other reason. I did see there is a possibility of using it if something medically comes up, but the details with that got pretty complicated. Is anyone able to offer some insight?  <response>: Id just like to point out that even in situations where you cannot avoid the penalty for early withdrawal, matched contributions are usually still hugely beneficial.For example, if you contribute 5k and the employer matches another 5k, even after paying the 10 penalty you net 4k extra before accounting for normal taxes.Also even with the penalty you can benefit from tax deferral. If you contribute dollars from the 25 bracket and withdraw later when you have no or little income 0 or 10 bracket, youll still end up paying less tax. Even the 15 bracket plus 10 penalty would break even. 