Retirement Contribution Priority

Where should your next dollar of savings go? A suggested order, rebuilt from your situation.

Educational, not tax or investment advice. Contribution limits and phase-outs change yearly — verify current numbers before acting.

Your situationresults update live — no account, no AI

Employer 401(k)/403(b) match?

High-interest debt (over ~7% APR)?

Emergency fundIn your own words (optional)Recognized signals become chips — click each one to set how much it counts.

Try an example:

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Accounts & eligibility

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Which accounts are actually open to you this year.

On a high-deductible health plan (HSA-eligible)?Household incomeFor 2026 the Roth IRA phase-out runs ~$153k–$168k single / ~$242k–$252k joint (MAGI, updated yearly — verify before acting).

Self-employment income?

Strategy

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Judgment calls that tilt the order — like taxes now versus later.

Tax bracket now vs. retirement (your guess)

Saving for kids’ education too?

Ranking confidence Early read (26%) · Answer next: employer match, tax trajectory, emergency fund

How these results work

Each savings step is scored on four dimensions — return on the next dollar, tax leverage, access before 59½, and simplicity — and your answers shift the scores and weights to rebuild the order for your situation.

Eligibility gates remove steps that don’t exist for you: no match means no match step, no high-deductible plan means no HSA, income above the limits hides the direct Roth.

The order is structural and rarely changes; the yearly numbers (limits, phase-outs) are deliberately left out — verify those before acting.

Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type here is stored on our servers.

Scores start neutral — answer anything on the left and the list below re-ranks instantly.

This year’s numbers are coming

The order above is structural and rarely changes. What changes yearly is the numbers — limits, phase-outs, catch-ups. A research layer is planned to stamp current figures onto your sequence and dollar-ize it from your budget.

Current-year limits

401(k), IRA, and HSA limits + catch-up amounts

My phase-out check

Where your income lands against Roth and deduction phase-outs

Dollar-ize my order

Turn the sequence into monthly amounts from your budget

Planned — the instant ranking above never waits on it. Tell us which research you’d want first.

Educational only — not tax or investment advice; verify current-year limits before acting. Runs entirely in your browser; nothing you type is stored on our servers.