Hello Everyone!
I am a total newb to super saving. If it were high school, you would throw me into a locker or give me a swirlee. Seriously though, I was always pretty reasonable with spending, just didn't really "get it" until now. I've just started saving 50% of my take home pay, so each month I'm saving $1,300 (I also have an additional one time $14,000 from a now dead relative). I live in nyc (please don't tell me to move, I can't right now as my partner is still in school), and I'm 26 years old. Basically what I would like to do is be in a confident position to purchase a house in the next 4-6 years (when I say house I mean a $150,000 ish home, obviously not where I live now).
I would like to take this time to add that what I have going for me is discipline, but I went to art school, so math is kind of terrifying to me, and I just want to make sure I have an ok plan. I currently work for a university, so I have access to a Roth IRA, I'm planning on maxing that out each year. In addition I would like to save the rest of my income (except for $5,000 which I would like access to as an emergency fund) into an index fund (I have just begun researching all this, so bear with me through my lack of specificity).
By my math (please don't make fun of me if this is wrong, well maybe a little jeering is ok) I will have about $40,000 in my IRA (my max is $5,000 a month), and $80,000 in an index fund.
So here are my questions:
1. Does this savings breakdown make sense?
2. At the time of home purchase, would I just take the down payment money out of my index fund? Is that common? Where do people usually save down payment money?
3. What should I do with the $14,000? I was not expecting it at all so I never thought about what to do, it may sound a bit silly to some of you veteran mustaches but that is the most money I've ever seen in my life and I really don't want to mess it up!
Any/all advice would be greatly appreciated.