Shoutout to the payroll lady who caught my math mistake

I was setting up my monthly budget and kept wondering why my savings account never grew despite cutting back on eating out. Then the payroll lady at my office casually asked if I was still putting 15% into my 401k. I told her I never changed it from 5%, and she showed me that my employer auto-enrolled me at 15% three years ago and I just never noticed. Has anyone else had their retirement contributions quietly bumped up without realizing it?

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annas874mo ago

...honestly I don't see why everyone's acting like this is some huge betrayal or whatever. Like yeah it sucks to not notice your money going somewhere else but you still have that money in a retirement account, it's not like she stole it from you. People act like their employer is trying to trap them when really most of us just don't read the paperwork we sign. Plus 15% is actually a pretty standard recommendation for 401k stuff so it's not like they picked some crazy high number.

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henderson.wesley4mo ago

Three years is not a bug, that's a feature of how they design those plans.

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dianal943mo ago

Funny how the same people who say "just read the fine print" are the ones who get hit by these auto-enrollment traps. Three years of 15% is a pretty steep price for missing one checkbox on orientation day.

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