u/ashloube

Just gunna leave this here

Would love any advice and guidance on how to approach the next 3-5 years for investing. TLDR is I grew up very low income, in a very small town, and most of the advice I got was pay off student loans as fast as I can, get company match, save what you can, never accrue credit interest (cc debt nearly cost my parents everything). My parents lived paycheck to paycheck and I started working at 13 to help pay for some of my own things. For instance, I didn’t know what a Roth IRA was during the years I was below the income threshold for it, and only opened brokerage accounts in 2021 after getting a job that took my annual income from 95k to 225k overnight, allowing me to max out my 401k contributions and put money into the stock market for the first time at 31. So at the last moment I put $5k in the Roth via my sign on bonus for 2020 tax cycle before my annual would be too high.

Details: 35, single income household, no kids, aging dog, VHCOL city where I rent and do not own a car or property. I have no liability or debt beyond paying off cards in full every month. My emergency fund I have in an HYSA is about 4.5 months worth of expenses for me. I also don’t personally care about having my accounts (like 401ks) at different financial institutions. In my living trust they are all represented/info given if anything happened to me, so my will executor + lawyer have all that’s needed. My current company has a 6% 401k match, and I put in $100/month to my HSA pre-tax. If I stay 5 years I will have a pension benefit in retirement (something like $1-2k/month) or can take an estimated lump sum of $50k with me when I go.

Thanks in advance for any advice and thoughts!!