Hello Personalfinance,

I was wondering if you guys can give me some help on my current finance, Am I doing alright or have to do rice and beans.

Age: 30 and less than a month old

Pretax Income: $76,000 in FL

401k: $27,252 ($383 going into the account bi-weekly)Roth IRA: $1,000 (just started)HSA: $2,000 (company contribution)Robinhood:$20,000 (I know this could have gone to the 401k, but was wedding fund which I recently broke up with ex during wedding planning. Will try to keep aside once this hits $30,000 for potential wedding later)Car: $10,000 worth fully paidCash: $11,000

I do not have any debt

regular expense is rent + utility which I share with my roommates and that is $900.

I used to do long distance with my ex for last 2 years and would fly up to see her every 2-3 weeks which was expensive her being in a professional school and paid all the dating expenses since every penny she spend was from fed student loan yikessss!! Anyway, hopefully I can save up more since I broke up with her recently.

I am trying to hit $6,500 on Roth IRA and slightly increase contribution to the Roth 401k.

Any advice? what would you do if you were in my situation?I feel like I am way behind than other people.

How can I save up to support older myself? Thank you

Update: I just updated 401k to 15% which will be $440 per biweekly paycheck. And trying to max-out roth ira

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Stock-Freedom t1_j6pi1er wrote on January 31, 2023 at 11:45 PM

Recommend switching to a traditional 401k to maximize tax benefits in peak earning years.

My generic advice:

https://imgur.io/lSoUQr2?r

Here is the flowchart from the r/personalfinance subreddit’s Prime Directive. If you follow that, you will be ahead of almost all of your peers.

Stop by the sidebar to see the Common Topics, which include basic money handling and investing.

You don’t need to talk to anyone or buy some random book to do this. You have all the tools right here.

AutoModerator t1_j6pi1gq wrote on January 31, 2023 at 11:45 PM

I love the flowchart! Here's the wiki page with more context and information.

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AutoModerator t1_j6pi1hd wrote on January 31, 2023 at 11:45 PM

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metal0130 t1_j6pg8z2 wrote on January 31, 2023 at 11:33 PM

To clarify, does that 401 contribution take into account any employer match?

Liquidretro t1_j6phltu wrote on January 31, 2023 at 11:42 PM

I would stop the taxable investing in your Robinhood until you had your retirement contributions up to at least 15% of income. Your are technically behind on retirement by a good amount (1 years salary by the age of 30), so aim for more while you can seemingly afford it. The value of compounding over time is huge for you.

You can save for a future wedding when there is someone in the picture and your are engaged. I wouldn't keep saving and earmark it for a wedding when one isn't likely in the near term. Until then it makes a great downpayment on a home if you want to be a homeowner. That said this sub doesn't recommend you invest money you plan to need in the next 5 years (short term).

Where is the rest of your money going? I calculated you should see about $3852 a month assuming 2 biweekly checks after 401k contributions. After rent that's nearly $3k that's unaccounted for.