We live by the "pay ourselves first" motto. So we have all savings swiftly tucked away before it hits our hot little hands. We max out the 401(k), with added $5k company match. We max out both Roth's each year and put $1000 a month in a MM account. We are fortunate enough, albeit from unfortunate reasons, to have about $23K per year in tax-free military retirement benefits. (VA and Combat related disability) So, in essence, we are investing in our Roth's with a portion of our tax free money...
All in all, we save about $40k per year. Not bad, but not super great, since we both got obliterated by divorce 5 years ago, and we started from scratch @ 38 and 32. So we lost time, more than anything...If, when, I go back to work, I can only work for a company that will allow me to max out my 410(k) contributions. Otherwise it doesn't make tax sense for us to do that. We will get slaughtered by Uncle Sam. I have found that so many companies put a cap on the % of salary you can invest in a 401(k). If you make $40k a year and they only allow 25% max contributions, well...big whoop! You're not really maxing out your 401(k)...
Good luck to the OP (original poster). So many people on this DB are on the right track. It's really great to see that...I am excited to learn from everyone on here.
Now, can we get the other 80% of this country on track?