Agree, you need to determine the investment order especially considering what you are currently making, what you will be making in retirement, and also take into account what Pension DW will have, as I know that varies state by state. I think generally if you are not making a lot of money Roth is a good idea, if you are highly compensated then 401k is better. I wish Roth 401k was around when I started my career, as I would have loved to put more money in when I was young, however did fully fund a Roth IRA all those years as well as max my 401k/TSP. A few years ago when tax rated dropped, and I projected future 401k worth, I realized that we may run into the situation where our retirement income would be > than our current income, so we could be at a higher tax bracket if we kept on the same path. So I moved my money from regular TSP into Roth TSP since tax brackets are low, then that way I can have multiple buckets to take money from at retirement. At retirement, if we have only my limited pension, I can take money from TSP at a very low rate, then as RMD's and Social Security kick in, hopefully TSP will be lower and Roth will be much higher. It all depends on what your current incomes are and what you project your future incomes to be. For a Roth IRA, you can withdrawal contributions for a house I believe, but if you are saving for a house then shouldn't you have a separate bucket for that? I've always tried to stay away from taking anything out of designated retirement accounts, so when I was saving for a house in the < 3 years, I just put money in a high interest savings account. So it really depends on current incomes, when you want to FIRE and future incomes for where you want to be saving money.
