Breaking the Nest Egg: Tread Carefully with Early Retirement Plan Withdrawals
Tax-deferred retirement plans, such as traditional 401(k)s and IRAs, were designed to make building up a retirement nest egg easier. So they're structured with both carrots (tax-deferred compounding in the account) and sticks (taxes and sometimes penalties on withdrawals) to encourage you to leave your money in the plan. But what if you need to access those funds early?