Current Assets:
$57k in a previous company's 401k
$1.3k in current company's 401k
$3k in after tax investments
$6k in a CD that matures this month that I'm planning to invest in mutual funds
$6k in emergeny savings.
I'm currently 34, hoping to retire at 50. My expenses this year were not very Mustachian, but I've been working on being more frugal. I'm assuming at this point that my expenses will be $17,300 for next year. I should be able to keep it under that, but I like to be conservative. My gross pay is $50k. I'm currently contributing 20% to my 401k, so $384/paycheck (bi-weekly). My effective tax rate is 28% (federal, state, FICA). (I'm not yet eligible for 401k matching, it will be .5% up to 2% when it kicks in, but I'm not factoring that extra 1% in yet)
Originally my plan was to continue contributing 20% to my 401k (assuming a 2% raise every year) and taking $350/paycheck after taxes to invest. That should give me enough to live off for 10 years, then at 60 start withdrawals from my 401k.
Now I'm thinking (after going through the posted articles) I should max out my 401k to the $17,500 starting next year, and only have about $125/paycheck for after tax investing. Convert my 401k to an IRA as soon as I retire, and do the Roth conversion pipeline. My only concern is that my after tax nest egg will be much smaller and I'll have less flexibility in that first 10 years. But if I do it my way, I'm only saving $19.3k next year; if I max out the 401k I can save at least $21k, and over time it would be at least $30k extra, so it does seem to make more sense to do it that way.