These hard economic times have many Americans accessing retirement accounts before retirement and experts say that this can cause major problems.

Experts say when you take into account the penalties, taxes and loss of future earnings, taking money from a 401K is a bad move.

They agree each situation is different but they want to point out that when money is withdrawn, an initial penalty equal to 10 percent of the amount you take out and then at the end of the year that money is counted as additional income so you end up paying taxes on it.