Where to invest?

[livid_gnome]

Hello all,

Here is my situation and I'm looking for some advice.  I'm a Mechanical Engineer at a Power plant in western Nebraska and I make a reasonable salary.  My wife stays home with my 4 children.  Right now I invest 5% of my salary into my 401K in order to get the 5% plus an additional $2000 match from my employer.  After that we max out our Roth IRA's, put just over $4000 (plus $750 from my employer) into an HSA, and use a very generous annual gift from here Grandparents ($10,000) for a 529 plan ($10,000 is the maximum you can put in to reduce state income tax in Nebraska).  We usually have money left over after this to put somewhere else and I'm not sure where the best place to put it is?  Currently between the 4 kids and charitable donations I do not pay any federal income tax so I do not see what the benefit of putting more money into the 401K or a 457 plan would be but maybe I’m missing something. 

[2Birds1Stone]

Max out that 401k if you can.

[Mr.GrowingMustache]

The consensus seems to be:


1. Safety Net/Cash - 6mo Expenses (mortgage, bills, loans, etc.)
2. 401k/TSP  - Max it out if you can (unless you have a high cost/fee 401k then only do the match. You will have to do the math on this.)
3. IRA/Roth IRA - depending on if you expect to earn less or more in retirement.
4. Low cost brokerage account ETFs - Vanguard ETFs

How the $$ is allocated in each account, will require some research. There is a lot of information on this forum if you use the search feature