Topic Title: Where to put it all??
Synopsis - We're smart fools who are frugal and have saved but have no idea where to put everything - Married 6 years and have had one immigration, 2 moves, 2 kids and 4 job transitions between us in that timespan and to be fair both of us are intimidated by making investment choices. Regardless, we're looking at making the right choices ahead and becoming much more knowledgeable.
Life Situation: IRS filing status: Married filing jointly, 2 kids (5 and 3 years old), US residents of VT/work in MA aged 34 and 37
Gross Salary/Wages: Partner 1: $75000, Partner 2: $100,000
Other Ordinary Income: None
Qualified Dividends & Long Term Capital Gains: None
Taxes:We don't claim our dependents (i.e. we get taxed as singles- not sure if this is the right/wrong thing to do),Federal:~ 8% for each of us, State Taxes: 4% averaged between us
Take home combined monthly pay : $~9000
Current monthly expenses:
Rent $1350
Childcare: $2000 (set to decrease substantially since kids are starting school this year- yay!)
Car/ House Insurance : $115
Life Insurance: $80
Internet/ Landline: $109
Electric Bill: $90
Gas: $40 (will go up in winter)
Food: ~$500
Meat: $100
Cellphones: $50
Gas: $300
Eating out (mostly) $400
Various Savings (529 plans, Vacation fund, car repair fund,etc.): $450
Tithes: ~$200
CC: Use to Pay expenses every month but pay it off before due - no debt-$0
Total:$5784
Current Retirement Savings:
401K 1: $125000 (contribute ~$400/month)
401K 2: $8000 (JH Target Retirment Fun 2050) (Contribute ~$700/month)
Traditional IRA (rollover of previous 401K): $17000 (VAnguard Target REtirement fund 2050)
No Roth IRA - Working to get this in motion
Assets:
Car 1: $13,000
Car 2: $10,000
House Sale: $30,000 cash (we live in an economically depressed area, we don't want to buy since we'd like to move once our companies likely shut down in the next 1-2 years but the pay is enough to stick around and we're saving more by renting anyway)
Emergency Fund: $27,000 cash
Liabilities: None
Specific Question(s): Where do we put everything we've saved?
Our plan going forward is :
1) Max out both 401K - $18500 each
2) Max out Roth IRA - $5500 each
3) What else can we do with our surplus? Taxable account? Max out kids 529s?
A big thank you to this group for helping us on our way even though we're late to the game and kicking ourselves for it!