Do think twice: It's not all right to tap your 401K

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FINRA warns sternly against using your 401(K) to get through a rough patch. For one thing, if you are under age 59-1/2, you'll be paying taxes through the nose: You'll have to fork over ordinary income tax on the amount you withdraw, plus a 10% penalty tax. To increase the pain, some employers will withhold 20% of your withdrawal amount. Which means that instead of getting the $20,000 you were hoping to use to pay the bills, you could wind up getting less than $14,000.

However, the biggest price you'll pay will be losing the opportunity to increase your investment in the future. Let's say that you're 40 years of age, and you have $40,000 in your 401(K). If it's growing at a conservative rate of 6%, you'd have more than $107,000 in 17 years, and that's even without adding more contributions. But if you withdraw half of your $40,000, the remaining $20,000 would be worth less than $54,000 in that same period of time. That's a dead loss of more than $50,000 just to get that $14,000 for your current needs. Think about it.

Retirement Accounts on Shine

Do think twice: It's not all right to tap your 401K