My opinion, no need to be digital about the decision and you've got a long road ahead of you.
0. Build a reserve fund of at least three months living expenses that is in cash.
1. After that put most towards the highest interest loan repayment
2. The balance start paying into an investment accounts, get comfortable with buying and selling equities, even if in small amounts. Roth IRA's are good but rather limited and you should have a mix of roth and traditional brokerage funds.
3. Longer term, start thinking beans, bullets and precious metals as the ultimate insurance package.
Thanks for the advice. So far I have the reserve fund setup and I am paying a ton on my previously mentioned 25k loan. As far as retirement goes I have and am doing the following:
- 10% to 401k
- Trad IRA @ Vanguard w/ an old 401k in it (no additional money is or can be (to my knowledge at least) put in this))
- Roth IRA @ T. Rowe Price w/ my current contributions and as of right now, no additional money.
Not sure what you mean by the beans and bullets but I have been looking at gold (and other rare metals). I remember a little over a year ago it was going for $800 and ounce and so I don't think it is wise (at least right now) to purchase any.
I am not sure exactly what you mean by getting more comfortable with buying and selling equities. While dealing with my current 401k/Roth/Trad accounts I am looking into revising my current asset allocation - is this what you are referring to? Or do you mean by having money in a taxable account and buying/selling there? I was told as a general rule to do the following:
- Save the max for a company 401k max
- then save 5k a year in a Roth IRA
- then max out 401k contributions @ 16.5k per year
- (if you are fortunate enough) then have taxable accounts
As a result of following this rule I have no etrade/scotttrade accounts where I can buy or sell equities as I am working on debt and saving only in my 401k.
Also I am not sure how this works so in addition to elaborating on the information above when it comes to T.Rowe Price and Vanguard and moving funds around (moving from lets say the S&P 500 index fund to a international fund within my 401k), does it cost money to do that??