Ramit SethiRamit Sethi: The No-BS Guide to Living a Rich Life

Skipping Your 401k Match? You’re Losing Free Money

5 Jan 2026 · 0 min

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0:25

A short YouTube video by Ramit Sethi urging viewers to take full advantage of employer 401(k) matching. He emphasizes that not contributing to the match is foregoing 'free money' and gives a concrete example: on $100,000 salary with a 3% employer match, contributing 3% ($3,000) results in $6,000 total when matched.

Questions this video answers

Contribute 3% of salary ($3,000).

$6,000 (employee $3,000 + employer match $3,000).

If you don't do this, you're basically saying, no, thank you, I don't like free money. Instead, I'm going to argue over the price of raisin bread instead of actually taking thousands of dollars of free money. What? I'm not even getting into it. I'm already mad right now just recording this video because some of you don't take your 401k match. So to keep it simple, if you make 100k and your company matches up to 3%, contribute 3%, that's $3,000 automatically doubled to $6,000. Let's move on.