I went to grad school so I feel like I’m behind on my finances and need to catch up. After finally learning about finances, I have been aggressively putting my money in my 401K (now 75K), Roth IRA (now 20K), and personal brokerage account (30K). I also have an emergency fund that will last me ~10 months or so. I paid off my student loans finally and have no cc debt or car loan. My monthly expenses are ~3500. (I live in a high cost of living area). My new salary is 145K.
I do see myself getting married and or buying a house in the next 5 years. So I was wondering since this company’s match is poor maybe I should stay liquid or focus more on personal brokerage account.
But the thing is that with this new pay bump, I’m pretty sure I will move up from 22% tax rate to 24% and that doesn’t include state tax or health insurance. So my take home pay will be about 57% of my gross income which hardly feels like a nice pay bump. But obviously If I keep my contribution at 15% or even max it out, I think it’s worth it just to save money on taxes.
I’m not trying to stay at this job for more than 2-3 years so I was wondering if maybe I should just do 10-12% in my 401K.
Any advice is greatly appreciated!