Received below from the HR department of the company I am working for.
New Roth Catch-Up Requirement Starting January 1, 2026, a new rule under the SECURE 2.0 Act will impact how certain employees can make catch up contributions to the Enterprise Holdings Retirement Savings Plan.
What’s Changing? If you’re turning age 50 or older in 2026 and your total 2025 FICA wages (Box 3 on your 2025 form W-2) are over $145,000, any catch-up contributions you make in 2026 are required to be after-tax Roth contributions.
What does this mean for you? If your FICA wages are over $145,000 in 2025, catch-up contributions must be made as after-tax Roth contributions in 2026. This will be done automatically thru our payroll department. If your FICA wages are $145,000 or less in 2025, this regulation will not apply to you, and no changes will be made to your catch-up contributions.
What are Catch-Up Contributions? Catch-Up contributions are extra contributions that participants aged 50 and over can make into their retirement plan. Participants 50 and over can contribute $7,500 above the standard limit of $23,500 (for 2025), and participants aged 60 – 63 can contribute $11,250 more than the standard limit (for 2025). Effective January 1, 2026, catch-up contributions will be automatically made as after-tax Roth contributions for employees whose FICA wages were over $145,000 in 2025. If you do not want to make Roth catch-up contributions in 2026, you will need to change your 401k contribution rate to 0% before you reach the 2026 standard limit. The IRS has not announced the 2026 standard limit yet; however, it was $23,500 in 2025.
What are Roth Contributions? Roth contributions are after-tax contributions, which grow tax-free and can be withdrawn tax-free in retirement, as long as five years have passed since your first Roth contribution, and you have attained the age of 59½.
Steps you can take now • Talk to a financial or tax advisor to understand how this change may affect your retirement strategy.
For example, if one can earn meaningful amount of money from the 401k (paper gain) and that amount is equal or bigger than salary, and the person is over 59 and half, can he/she consider retirement? I recall there is a YT video on this – maybe this one by Azul – Research Shows This Is The Perfect Age To Retire (this is an interesting point: see if you can retire the debt including the mortgage before retirement).
I loved this comment: “No such thing when it comes to retirees. I see two groups, one that does what you said (and typically dies with as much money in accounts as when they retired) and one that get healthy and stays healthy and gets busy intentionally creating and enjoying life! From what I see it’s about a 70-30 split with 70% ding very little – but the 30% are having a great time!! You have to choose which group to be in before your health choses for you. The Lie of Later: How ‘Future Time Slack’ Is Stealing Your Retirement – now I realized this article is really appliable to everyone, both active workers and retirees.”
My own video
This morning, I also talked about aging, retirement and related topics on my morning walk via YT. Or you can watch from Bilibili (link here) if you are inside China.
If you reach your 65th birthday, you have about a 70% chance of needing some form of long-term care services and support, according to a 2020 estimate from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. On average, women who require care need it longer — 3.7 years, versus 2.2 years for men. While a third of 65-year-olds will never need long-term care, 20% will end up requiring it for more than five years...
For example, the cost of a home health aide reached an annual median cost of $77,792 last year, up 3% from 2023, according to the 2024 Cost of Care survey conducted by Genworth Financial. The national annual median cost of a semiprivate room in a nursing home rose to $111,325, up 7% from 2023. For a private room, the median yearly cost climbed 9% to $127,750.
The best time is now; the second-best time is tomorrow. –anonymous
After 25 years career I finally got an office with windows
Career
Per my age and typical stereotype, I think I am expected to wind down my career in the software field now (my LinkedIn profile here). I understand career is more than a LinkedIn profile or a resume, but here in the USA IT IS one of those things that MATTER, in addition to title, experience and compensation history. Useless or but fun fact: I started my LinkedIn profile in 2008, about 17 years ago.
US companies are mostly snobs, in my not too humble opinions. I mean CEOs or the higher ups, not the average Jane and Joe. Doesn’t matter whatever they say publicly – their mission is making money for the owners, not for employees. This is quite obvious from the recent high-profile layoffs such as Amazon laying off 14,000 back-office people/white collar workers last week.
And I have my favorite quote related to that topic too. When questions by reporters why he took $55 million exit package in 2002, when he was forced out, former CEO of EDS, Electronic Data Systems, Dick Brown famously said: I have an expensive wife. I know I know, I don’t have expensive wife. But I also have two daughters who like to buy things. Or should I ass that they have good taste? 🙂
Sorry a bit off topic 🙂 Last month (Oct 2025) I passed 25 years’ work anniversary in the USA. I started working here on Oct 2nd, 2000. A lot has changed since I started working here. I have seen quite a bit of industry underwent paradigm shift. From the Internet bubble (web 1.0) burst to web 2.0 (remember delicious, Flickr and digg.com?). And now we have web 3.0 and more. My career wise, I changed from working in the CAD software to mostly enterprise web applications, with a bit of consulting and iOS dev in between.
I don’t want to be forced out
I have seen coworkers who are about 50 years old, being laid off, at multiple places. Some of them were caught off guard. I was much younger or a bit younger then. Now I am at that age. And I don’t want to be in their shoes. I have literally seen grownups crying when they got laid off.
Also, right now I felt I can still do some meaningful work. If the time comes that I feel I cannot contribute in a meaningful way, I will just quit.
Re: AI, we all know the AI is causing a lot of disruptions and anxiety among IT/software workers nowadays. But I also believe at least for now, my job is not impacted. And if I can learn those AI tools and they can actually help me doing my job.
How much money is enough
One problem is most of us don’t know the answer to “how much money is enough?”. Or my favorite answer is “a little bit more” (it’s both a joke and also has some truth to it).
But seriously I need to think about this question as the date of retirement is approaching, either I want to face it or not. Some of the things I am thinking about regarding this topic.
1. My retirement is probably going to be different from my parents’ retirement. They have a more traditional retirement. My dad has a pension, and I don’t. And they stopped working completely when they retire. I think I will likely do some work (not too strenuous), for example, I will manage my 401k and IRAs, as well as doing other things I like to do (music, walking outside, does that include swimming??? 🙂 And some social life too (not drinking at the bar, I mean probably I am good enough, I can play music at the bar, again just for fun, not for money 🙂
Do I continue to mow my lawns? If I am health enough and feel like it. If not, I can either outsource it or sell the house and move to a townhouse or condo. Note selling the house will be a joint decision not solely mine.
2. I will probably have some hobbies and some travel. But probably equally important, I need to manage my 401k and IRAs, making sure they have decent return and will last. This is also something my parents don’t do. Sorry I am getting repetitive here – signs of my age and the need to retire 🙂
Still TBD as of 11-03-2025 (JIRA board doesn’t look good in terms of velocity 🙂
I need to calculate how much my 401k and IRAs were earning in last 35 or 10 years or so. If the total earnings (capital gain + dividend) are approaching my take home pay of my day job, that will be a good sign. Obviously, I need to fact into my financial obligations: the big-ticket item will be my kid’s college costs, and it will also be a big unknown because the US higher education industry is very similar to the US healthcare industry in terms of price transparency 🙂 You may read more about the college cost here as I learned last year. Note that’s applicable for the American students only (I assume US citizens and permanent residents, not sure about the children of visa holders), and not for the international students. Consult an expert on this topic, if applicable.
3. When applicable, I am thinking some side hustles including but not limiting to Uber or eBay to make some money and have something to do.
Cannot counting on that for meaningful amount of money though – ideally main income stream should come from investments, as said in this old saying “if you don’t make money when you sleep, you will work until you die.” I for one definitely don’t want to work until I die.
我想对年轻人来说，这个基本上是适用的。比如说前几年流行的创业，我们年轻时（大学毕业时，九十年代初）去南方，广东，深圳等。With some exceptions, of course. The main thing is we all need to listen to our body – doesn’t matter whether one is young or old.
Andrew McAuley (Wikipedia, Twitter/X): quote wikipedia – Andrew McAuley (born 7 August 1968; presumed dead 9–12 February 2007) was an Australian mountaineer and sea kayaker. He is presumed to have died following his disappearance at sea while attempting to kayak 1600 km (994 mi) across the Tasman Sea from Australia to New Zealand in February 2007.
其实很重要。我记得，大概二十年之前，因为我的个人工作生活不是太顺，我想过要不要去读一个 Master of Financial Engineering, 然后跟我在罗拉时的师弟那样，去华尔街做几年。我好像当时申请了纽约的哥伦比亚大学。她家没要我。某种程度上，我觉得是庆幸的。
(05-19-2024) Now I think about it, both (late) Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett stayed in their respective houses for many decades. Once Charlie joked, if people offered money to move across the street, he would not do it (the context is a question came up re: some rich people in California moved to Texas to avoid high tax).
Last but not least, I like to share something I heard – “We don’t know if we will die from overworking but why take chance” – probably said by Ronald Reagan (per Charlie Munger or Warren Buffett). Btw, I ran at Olivette this beautiful Sunday morning.
Reading Time: < 1minuteThis is to fix a show stopper problem in v 1.2, as pointed out by one of the users. The problem happened after a user used the keyboard to input data (dismiss the keyboard by tap background), the app will add a comma to “beginning savings” and “salary”. This causes confusion and mis-calculation down the road.
The problem is fixed now in v 1.3. The user needs to update the app to get the fix. In some cases you may need to re-enter the “beginning savings” and “salary” if those numbers are no longer correct in the app. Please let me know if you have any problem.
I am sorry for the inconvenience it may have caused, and wish all a good holiday.
Reading Time: < 1minuteMore Q&A about myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator app
1. Why do you create yet another retirement calculator app?
I understand there are quite a few retirement calculators in the App store. Some are free, others are not free. MyNestEgg belongs to the latter category. My goal here, as I said the the product description, is to provide a simple and easy to use to calculator retirement savings/income. It shows the “saving progress” and “income ratio” which combined give the user an idea about where she/he is in terms of saving, and what income level to expect when she/he retires. Also the input data is saved on your iPhone, so as the user runs this app from time to time, she/he can get an idea about how the retirement savings account does over the time (so that she/he can act accordingly).
2. Does it support language other than English?
The app use English only at this time. However, as I explained in the support page, the user can adjust the “regional format” to get the local currency.
3. I don’t have iPhone, so…
The app can be run on iOS 3.1.2 or later powered devices, which includes iPod Touch and iPad besides iPhone.
I saw some useful web based calculator, such as this one created by FINRA. One limitation is they don’t save the data, so you may want to write down the results (or better yet save to Google Docs) after doing calculation.
Also, I am consider porting (creating) the app for Android, if there are enough interest to justify my effort.
Reading Time: < 1minuteMore Q&A about myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator app
1. Why do you create yet another retirement calculator app?
I understand there are quite a few retirement calculators in the App store. Some are free, others are not free. MyNestEgg belongs to the latter category. My goal here, as I said the the product description, is to provide a simple and easy to use to calculator retirement savings/income. It shows the “saving progress” and “income ratio” which combined give the user an idea about where she/he is in terms of saving, and what income level to expect when she/he retires. Also the input data is saved on your iPhone, so as the user runs this app from time to time, she/he can get an idea about how the retirement savings account does over the time (so that she/he can act accordingly).
2. Does it support language other than English?
The app use English only at this time. However, as I explained in the support page, the user can adjust the “regional format” to get the local currency.
3. I don’t have iPhone, so…
The app can be run on iOS 3.1.2 or later powered devices, which includes iPod Touch and iPad besides iPhone.
I saw some useful web based calculator, such as this one created by FINRA. One limitation is they don’t save the data, so you may want to write down the results (or better yet save to Google Docs) after doing calculation.
Also, I am consider porting (creating) the app for Android, if there are enough interest to justify my effort.
