Hi everyone! I've been lurking around this site and forum for quite a while now but just finally signed up for an account. There's too much good information on here not to participate! :)
Anyway, my wife and I are both 26 years old, debt free (we don't have a mortgage... yet) and contribute into our company-provided 401k's just enough to get the full company match. Beyond that, we're taking all of our excess money each month (roughly somewhere 40-50% of our take-home pay) to put toward our emergency fund (I want to get it to 6 months of expenses).
My question for all of you is this: If our goal is going to be early retirement (say mid-40's or something), why should we max out our 401k's and even an IRA due to the penalties we'd face for early withdrawals? I've done some reading about the 72t (SEPP) rules for IRA, but I still don't know enough to be comfortable with maxing out 401k's as opposed to heavily investing in a taxable account at Vanguard, for example.
Thanks for any help you can offer.