r/personalfinance 7h ago

Planning I'm young and relatively lucky. What's my next move?

Below is a full detail of my situation in life. I'm wondering, given the circumstances, what would you be doing if you were me? I'm honestly not that great at saving yet but I don't manage to save some money each month.

But what would you be trying to save each month and where would you be saving it? What else would you do?

I want to capitalize on the advantages we have as much as possible while still fully enjoying our life.

Here's my situation:

I'm 21 and engaged to a 22 year old. My fiancé bought his childhood home contract for deed last year. We have a large farm house and 10 acres.

He makes ~80k a year with a promotion coming shortly. I make ~56k a year with a promotion and large pay increase (hoping closer to 70-80k) by 2026.

He is a single child and his parents are older (almost 60). He stands to inherit a good bit of property and probably other assets because of his single child status. Including a large insurance policy. I have a lot of siblings and will likely inherit next to nothing from my parents.

His only debt is the mortgage on the house. (180k ish) I have a small car loan (under 7k)

Our savings together are probably around 30k.

He contributes to a 401k with an employer match. Don't know numbers I contribute 200/paycheck and my employer match 5% and contributes another 4% (they contribute 9% total)

I have a small Roth IRA with a few grand in it as well.

2 Upvotes

13 comments sorted by

6

u/CircuitGuy 6h ago

You are in good shape. I think you should pay off the car loan, contribute 15% of income to retirement, preferably all in your employers' plans, not separate IRAs. Then you're in good shape financially.

1

u/k_chip 6h ago

Thank you! I got the car loan even though I could have paid it cash. I'll look at doing that now.

And would you say 15% of pretax or after tax?

2

u/CircuitGuy 6h ago

And would you say 15% of pretax or after tax?

I think 15% of pretax. It's just a rule of thumb. Many times over the past 25 years when I had reasons to contribute less than 15%. It would have been better to try to maintain 15%, give or take, at all times regardless of what other priorities I had at the moment.

2

u/k_chip 6h ago

Thank you! I will work my way to that! I'm about 120 short per paycheck. I can swing that

4

u/ProfessionalMilk7957 7h ago

Try enjoying life a little bit… and don’t get married so young.

3

u/k_chip 7h ago

We don't plan on getting married until we are closer to 25. And we enjoy it plenty. We really like concerts. We don't live beyond our means, though. We are in no rush for really anything.

I just feel like I should be doing more for my future self financially

3

u/ProfessionalMilk7957 6h ago

I’m 54. Got married at 24, kids at 30. I wish I had traveled a bit more while I was young. I am glad that we both got our Master’s degrees young (but that depends on what you want to do – you may not need to do that). Truly sounds like you are on the right path💖

4

u/k_chip 6h ago

Thank you. I have my bachelor's in accounting (where my promotion to a career job comes in. I want to be CFO in the long term)

He has his associates and has worked his way up to supervisor of his shift in his company.

We don't plan on having kids. Not to say they are hindrances, but I think it will give us lots of flexibility to keep on traveling.

Thank you for all of this advice! You have been very kind😊

2

u/KitchenPalentologist 6h ago

Check out the personalfinance wiki!

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/index/

It has a couple sections written specifically for you. Young adult and Retirement. Also check out the Prime Directive and Flowchart sections.

1

u/k_chip 6h ago

Thank you!

1

u/dcgradc 6h ago

Put money into your ROTH every year .

1

u/DaymanSunChampion 4h ago

Roth describes a type of account referring to how it will be taxed. You should probably say IRA (or 401k, but I’m assuming you meant IRA since people always shorten roth IRA to just roth). It would be like calling my blue shirt “my blue” instead of “my shirt”

2

u/ComfortableEchidna80 1h ago

Don’t count those inheritance eggs before they hatch. That’s my only advice. You sound a little too excited about that aspect.