We're working through this flowchart but also wondering if the specific things we're doing are smart.
Context:
- My wife and I are in our mid-20s with two kids (2yr old + 6mo old)
- Take home pay averages about $5K monthly
- $250K Mortgage [[@](/user/)](/user/) 4.375%, ~$1300 monthly
- Roughly $45K [[@](/user/)](/user/) 0% combined federal student loans; under the SAVE plan, payments are $0 (for now) and wife is doing PSLF
- $10K in a HYSA [[@](/user/)](/user/) 4.75% APY
- Wife has a 401(a) and 403(b) with $3200-ish from employer contributions; we weren't going to contribute until we were sure SAVE wasn't too good to be true, so we are planning to restart contributions to the 401(a) in November when we can make changes to her benefits
- I just opened a Roth IRA at Fidelity splitting contributions 80/20 FZROX/FZILX
- Each kid has a 529 on our state's "aggressive" track; I figured with it being early on, this would be fine, but I'm not sure if I have it backwards
- We have no credit card debt or loans besides what was mentioned before
I guess I'm just trying to figure out if I'm doing things that'll pay off, or if there's some inefficiency I'm not seeing and or that won't be corrected some time in the near future with our plans. I know we won't be able to max our retirement accounts on our current incomes, but 10-15% of our income should be doable. I won't be eligible for a 401(k) at my job until October, and I am planning to stop contributing to the Roth at that point and do the 401(k). Would it make sense to roll the Roth to the 401(k) (can it even be done?), leave it as-is, or forget the 401(k) entirely and stick with the Roth? I'm not in a rush to pay off the mortgage right now, but once the kids are done with daycare, we will be able to contribute more to our retirement plans and probably put more toward the mortgage at that point. There's also a good chance we'll make too much for next year to pay $0 on our student loans, but we've been putting money away to pull from for that before having to use our work incomes. I'm also going to see if we can roll my wife's 403(b) into the 401(a), or the other way around if it makes more sense to do that.
tl;dr I'm trying to simplify our finances and get hella bread yo
original posted by MrTonyBaloney to r/personalfinance on Sun, 10 Mar 2024 23:26:33 GMT.