What If I Stop Contributing to My 401(k)?

Maybe you want to free up cash now, you’ve already saved aggressively, or you’re deciding whether those last few years of contributions actually change the outcome. This recipe shows you the trade-off between money in your pocket today and compounding for later.

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The quick version

1. Run your current plan (still contributing) and note the numbers.
2. On the Accounts tab, set your 401(k) contribution to stop (now or on a date), and re-run.
3. Compare against baseline on the Compare tab — how much do your success rate and final balance change?
4. Load Baseline (⤺) restores your contributing plan when you’re done.

Step by step

A stopped contribution changes your account setup, not your withdrawal recipe — so you edit your working plan directly (and can save it as a scenario) rather than saving a named strategy. Your saved baseline stays the comparison reference, and Load Baseline (⤺) restores it afterward.

1. Note your baseline. Run your current plan (still contributing) so you have its success rate and ending balance in front of you.

2. Stop the contribution. On the Accounts tab, find your 401(k) and either set the monthly contribution to $0 or give it an end date (for example, "stop at the end of this year"). Re-run.

3. Compare against baseline. On the Compare tab, leave Compare against baseline on and Run Comparison — look at the success rate and, especially, the median and P10 ending balance (that’s where stopping shows up most).

How to read it — use Compare against baseline. Running your plan, editing it, and re-running are two separate samples on different markets, so a small gap could be luck. For a clean read, put it on the Compare tab with Compare against baseline on: your still-contributing baseline and your stopped-contribution plan run on the same market sequences (shared seeds) — this now covers an account change, not just a strategy tweak — so the gap between the two lines is the contribution change itself, not chance.

4. Snap back. When you’re done, Load Baseline (⤺, next to Save Baseline) restores your contributing plan in one click — no re-entry needed.

What to look at

• Median & P10 ending balance — this is where stopping contributions shows up most. Fewer contributions plus less compounding usually means a smaller portfolio later; the chart shows how much smaller.
• Success Rate — sometimes it barely moves (you’ve already saved enough), sometimes it drops meaningfully. That answer is the whole point of asking.
• The gap over time — on the trajectory chart, watch how the two plans diverge. A few years of missed contributions early can compound into a surprisingly large difference decades later.

Consider what you’ll do with the savings

RetireRange models what happens inside your retirement accounts. It doesn’t track what you do with the money you free up by not contributing. So the comparison shows the cost to your retirement portfolio of stopping — the other side of the ledger (paying down a mortgage, funding a goal, or simply spending it) is yours to weigh. Also keep in mind that traditional 401(k) contributions lower your taxable income while you’re working, a present-day benefit this retirement model doesn’t capture.

If stopping hurts the plan more than you’d like

• Redirect instead of stopping — move the contribution to a Roth or taxable account rather than ending it.
• Reduce partially — contribute less rather than nothing.
• Keep catch-up contributions if you’re 50+ (or 55+ for an HSA), where the limits are higher.
• Re-run and compare each variation to see which keeps your success rate where you want it.