Definitely not doing it wrong. In fact, I'd say you're crushing it.

Gunfighter is describing a more hands-on approach, preferring to direct max $ towards his Roth buckets than is normally achievable by the (perfectly acceptable) "autopilot" approach.

Say Joe Pilot, you & Gunfighter all make $228,125 in 2018, and are all under 50.

Joe maxes his 401k contributions using pre-tax, preferring to take the deduction this year. You make your $18.5k contribution to the Roth 401k and Gunfighter does as he described above, aggressively pushing EXTRA $ into his Roth accounts. The company makes 16% contributions for everyone.

Year end result - not counting any earnings:

Joe: $55k of traditional, pre-tax money

You: $36.5k of traditional, pre-tax money & $18.5k of Roth money

Gunfighter: ~$4.5k* of traditional, pre-tax money & $50.5k of Roth money. His excess 16% contributions (above the $55k 415c limit) are paid as ordinary income and taxed as such.

*The $4.5k of traditional money is just a wag, and would be equal to whatever 16% times his pay until he hits the 415c limit. In this example I just multiplied 16% times 3 paychecks @ $228k/year since he says he normally fills up by Valentine's day.


In these scenarios everybody is socking away a lot of $ and nobody is doing it right or wrong. Each individual has to look at their entire picture (spouse working, side job, military retirement, former 401k, etc) and THEN make some educated guesses about the future.

There are definitely some pros/cons to each choice that you should be aware of, but we won't know who optimized perfectly until we're all dead. No point sweating it, since all 3 above are going to have a pile of $ regardless.

Personally, I tend to lean your way more. You and Joe could balance your buckets a little bit by making Backdoor Roth IRA contributions (an entirely different discussion) for you/spouse which would add another $5.5k of Roth money to your total picture per spouse/year.

Also, if you're making less than $228,125/year at Delta, you can benefit from Gunfigher's 401a->Roth technique as well by filling that unused 415c headroom with Roth money.