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Mailbag Monday: A 401(k) Loan

mailbagmondayI work full-time and am married with three children. In 2010, my husband lost his job — we ended up losing our house and were in a crunch to pay off $45,000 in credit card debt, not to mention two cars and PLUS loans. When all this happened, I went to the first credit card company and worked out a payment plan for the next year. However, the other card companies weren’t as easy to deal with. So I went through the National Foundation for Credit Counseling for help in consolidating our credit card debt. Now I am paying for that one credit card and have an account to pay off the others through a credit counselor.

My question: I took a loan out against my 401(k) to pay off those cards and some college expenses that my youngest daughter will have (after her student loans and scholarship, she needed about $9,000 for tuition). The credit card debt now totals $24,000. Did it make sense to take the loan and be done with the debt? I am repaying the loan over three years.

— Annette

Hi Annette, here’s the deal with 401(k) loans: On the upside, you pay them back, with interest, to yourself, so looking only at the math, they are a better deal than other borrowing scenarios.

The rub is that if you lose your job — as your husband did, so you know this can happen, and often suddenly — you are in many cases required to pay that money back inside of two months. Otherwise, it is treated as a distribution and you are taxed and penalized as such. So it’s risky. You are also taking money out of the market, which could mean selling investments and locking in losses if you do this at the wrong time. And recent research suggests that if you borrow once, you’re more likely to do it again. All of these things make 401(k) loans a last-resort option.

But you already did it, and the good news is you’re paying it back to yourself, not a creditor. It also likely has a lower interest rate than your debt, although I don’t know what interest rate was negotiated by the credit counselor — it may be very good. In any case, just make sure you continue paying it and your credit card debt off and hang on to that job. And note: In general, I don’t recommend borrowing from or shortchanging your retirement to pay for college expenses. There is financial aid available that your children can tap if necessary, but you are not going to find financial aid resources to fund your retirement.