How much would maxing out my traditional 401k save me in taxes and affect my paycheck?

This is actually pretty straightforward to calculate! Since you're in the 24% tax bracket, every dollar you contribute to your traditional 401k saves you $0.24 in federal income tax. If you max out the full $22,500, you'd save approximately $5,400 in federal income taxes ($22,500 × 0.24). This is a simplified calculation assuming all your contributions would have been taxed at 24%. For your paycheck impact, divide your annual contribution by the number of pay periods. If you're paid bi-weekly (26 pay periods), contributing the full $22,500 would reduce each paycheck by about $865 pre-tax, but your actual take-home reduction would only be around $658 ($865 - $207 tax savings per paycheck). For the Roth vs. Traditional question, remember that Traditional gives you tax savings now, while Roth gives you tax-free growth. If you expect to be in a higher tax bracket in retirement, Roth might be better. If you expect to be in a lower bracket, Traditional might be better.

I was in almost exactly your situation last year. I discovered this great tool at https://taxr.ai that really helped me visualize the actual tax impact of different 401k strategies. It lets you compare different contribution scenarios side by side and shows exactly how much you'd save per paycheck and annually. What I found super helpful was being able to toggle between different contribution amounts to see the marginal benefit of each additional dollar I put in. The tool showed me that maxing out my traditional 401k saved me about $5,100 in federal taxes, which was huge for my long-term savings goals. It also helped me understand the Roth vs Traditional tradeoff by showing projected values at retirement based on different tax scenarios. Totally changed my contribution strategy.

I was really skeptical about using any online tax tools, but I tried the taxr.ai site mentioned above and it actually answered my questions perfectly. I had a similar income level (around $118k) and was deciding between maxing my 401k or just getting the match. The visualization really helped me see that in my case, I'd save about $4,800 in federal taxes by maxing out my traditional 401k. But what was most valuable was seeing how it would affect my cash flow throughout the year. I ended up doing a hybrid approach - about 75% traditional and 25% Roth - which the tool showed was optimal for my situation. Definitely gave me more confidence in my decision than just guessing or using a basic calculator.

If you're trying to make this decision, you might also want to consider what happens if you need to contact the IRS with questions about your retirement accounts or tax situation. I spent WEEKS trying to get through to someone at the IRS last year when I had questions about my 401k rollover. I eventually found https://claimyr.com which completely solved this problem for me. You can check out how it works in this video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c but basically they hold your place in line with the IRS and call you when an agent is about to answer. This was super helpful because I needed specific guidance on how my 401k decisions would affect my tax liability, and the IRS agent was able to walk me through the exact calculations based on my situation. Saved me hours of frustration and probably a lot of money in potentially wrong tax decisions.

I was completely against using any kind of paid service to reach the IRS - it felt wrong on principle. But after spending THREE SEPARATE DAYS trying to get through to ask questions about my 401k contribution limits (I have a complicated situation with multiple employers), I broke down and tried Claimyr. I hate to admit it, but it worked perfectly. Got a call back in under 2 hours and spoke to an agent who actually answered all my questions about how my 401k contributions would affect my tax situation. They explained exactly how much I'd save by maxing out my 401k at my income level. For anyone struggling with 401k tax questions like the original poster, getting direct answers from the IRS was incredibly helpful and gave me confidence in my decisions. Still wish the system worked better, but I can't argue with the results.

Another approach is to use the IRS withholding calculator on their website. It's free and pretty accurate for basic situations like yours. For a quick estimate: If your salary is $120k and you max out your 401k at $22,500, your taxable income would be reduced to $97,500 (ignoring standard deduction for simplicity). This would save you approximately $5,400 in federal taxes as others have mentioned. But here's something others haven't mentioned - consider the opportunity cost. That $22,500 in a Roth would grow tax-free forever. At 7% annual return over 30 years, the tax-free growth might outweigh the current tax savings, especially if you believe tax rates will increase in the future.

one thing nobody mentioned is that if ur over the roth ira income limits, doing traditional 401k contributions can actually help you get under those limits! this was a huge benefit for me cuz at $115k you're right near the phaseout range for roth ira contributions. by putting in traditional 401k $, you lower your MAGI which could let you still contribute directly to a roth ira instead of having to do backdoor conversions. this adds another benefit to going traditional with your 401k!

One thing that might help you make this decision is to also consider your employer's vesting schedule and matching policy. If your company has a generous match, you definitely want to capture that free money first before worrying about traditional vs Roth. Also, since you mentioned you're deciding between maxing out pre-tax vs just getting the match and doing backdoor Roth conversions - remember that you can actually do both! You could max out your traditional 401k (getting those tax savings now) AND still do a backdoor Roth IRA conversion for an additional $7,000 since your income is above the direct Roth IRA limits. This gives you the best of both worlds: immediate tax relief from the 401k contributions, plus additional tax-free growth from the Roth IRA. At your income level, this combined strategy could be really powerful for long-term wealth building.