Life Situation: I'm in grad school in a STEM PhD program, so I'm funded but at a pretty low salary. I live with my boyfriend and split expenses, so I've be able to save for both medium term anticipated expenses and for retirement.
Salary: I made $24,500 for the last three years but my stipend was raised this year (so far they've announced a $3,000 raise for the school year, I'm assuming they'll raise our summer stipend by $1,000 but no one has confirmed that yet). I get paid different amounts during the fall, spring and summer terms because of the number of weeks per term.
Assets:
$9,218.89 in a high-yield savings account with 0.9% interest (this is my emergency fund and my medium-term goals fund). I've been putting ~$200/month in this account.
$12,226.01 in a regular IRA
$2,179.01 in a Roth IRA (I switched when I realized my income is currently the lowest it will ever be). I've been putting ~$200/month in this account.
I try to keep ~$1,000 in my primary checking and savings accounts for short term emergencies/money I can get from an ATM. The interest is basically zero but there aren't any fees.
Liabilities:
$12,500 in federally subsidized student loans. They're on hold because I'm a full time student and are not accruing interest while I'm in school.
Medium term (1-5 year) liabilities are where my question comes in. I'm going to graduate in a year or two and at that point I will have to: 1) pay my student loans, 2) move, 3) buy a car (depending on where we move) 4) get married (? doesn't have a deadline but depending where we move might have to happen for immigration purposes). All of those things take money, and I'm not sure how I should split saving for these things that I know will be expensive but don't have an actual price tag or deadline, vs contributing to my retirement accounts. So far I've just taken all the money I have to save and split it down the middle, but I'm anticipating and extra $3-4 k this year and I'm not sure what to do with it.
Should I continue splitting the money I save in half for both goals or max out my Roth IRA?
How much is it reasonable to having sitting in a savings account for potential expenses? Is there somewhere better to put the money until the potential expenses become real expenses?