<prompt> Human: My company matches 75 on 1st 8 of pay with Maximum Contribution Percent of 30. My income is 70,000.My question is if I contribute a maximum of 30, what would would happen to the remaining 22, given that my employer matches 75 on the first 8? What are the benefits in maximizing my contribution at 30?UPDATESince I was just recently hired, how do I get to 4200 at the end of this year. Would I have to increase my contribution this year to get to 4200 before the year ends? My employer also offers Roth and Aftertax with maximum contribution at 30. I assume to reach the limit of 5500 for Roth, I would also have to increase my contribution to reach the limit in this case as well. I get paid bi-weekly if this helps. I imagine that I would have to do some calculations to find the percentage of contribution I would have to make to get 4200 this year for the 401K, and likewise the Roth.Thank you  <response>: My question is if I contribute a maximum of 30, what would would happen to the remaining 22, given that my employer matches 75 on the first 8? What are the benefits in maximizing my contribution at 30?Matches are great, its free money, but your own contributions are important too. The benefit of contributing more is having more money growing tax deferred in your 401k. Keep in mind that 30 of 70,000 is more than the contribution limit for a 401k, which is 18,000 the match doesnt count towards this. You could contribute up to 25, or 17,500. Some folks recommend only contributing up to the match, then funding an IRA. More on that in a minute. Since I was just recently hired, how do I get to 4200 at the end of this year?You most likely dont. Employer matches are generally done per pay period based on your contribution in that pay period. They will match 75 of that 8 for the remaining pay periods of the year.If you get paid twice a month, thats a 175 match 70,000 24 .08 .75 for each paycheck left in the year, so 1,225 if there are 7 paychecks left. My employer also offers Roth and Aftertax with maximum contribution at 30. I assume to reach the limit of 5500 for Roth...They are offering Roth and after-tax 401k contributions. This is different than a Roth IRA, which is an individual account opened by you, not your company. These contributions count towards the same 18,000 limit mentioned above, they have nothing to do with the 5,500 IRA limit, which is completely separate.A typical approach might be to contribute 8 to get the full match, then fund a Roth IRA that you open with FidelityVanguardSchwab next, then if you max that out at 5,500, go back to the 401k and up the contribution percentage as close to the 18,000 max as you can get. 