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My wife and I are operating under the assumption we will live to 100. We probably won't, but we are going to prepare as if we will. Our goals are to live a comfortable, fulfilling life the whole way, including now. Anything unused at the end will go to the kids or grandkids, which is fine with us.

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Exactly. My mortgage is at 3% and I could pay it off any time I want, but I’d rather invest. Even a relatively conservative portfolio should make more than double that rate as long as you can stay invested for a few years

This mentality is wrong-headed. Debt isn’t bad, expensive debt is bad. Never pay off cheap debt faster than you have to, instead put that extra money to work making better returns than your borrowing rate.

Would your landlord give you a discount for prepaying?

If not, it's a terrible idea.

I was in a similar situation. I started to pay extra each month. I did that for a few years and when I had the loan down below 5 grand, I paid it off. That gave me a little leeway on savings and being comfortable with shoving extra towards the loan.

It was a fantastic feeling getting rid of it. It was my last debt before I retired. 😊

A risk-free 4.99% after-tax return is a pretty good return on money. Make sure you're continuing to get the full match on your 401k and then after that I'd say feel free to flex more of your savings into paying down the auto loan. But if you're worried about emergency fund/other savings it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Find that happy middle ground for your own personal preferences.

Save as much as you can for a few years so you don't have to worry about it later. Also I'd recommend reading the subreddits financial independence, coastfire, and maybe even fire if you're interested in early retirement.

This is a bad idea. NYC is very tenant-friendly, legally speaking. You have no real reason to do this, and no recourse if the apartment is uninhabitable.

Yes, beyond a very modest emergency fund. If you want it gone, you need focus. This is a simple question of priority and not doing every step at once.

Note: I expect some counter-arguments, especially on car loans, but you stated your goal. If this is about math, yes it is possible to outearn interest paid elsewhere. If this is about freeing yourself from a debt ASAP, its a simple shovel and dirt problem. Make your shovel bigger to move the dirt faster, and don't use part of it to dump dirt elsewhere.

I just went ahead and did that. It's still showing payments for years when I was not making payments.

Offering to prepay rent will make your application more attractive in NYC. My daughter had to do this to qualify when she was just starting her new job.

Be sure to get everything in writing, documenting the prepaid rent.

Did you pull your official credit reports from www.annualcreditreport.com?

Credit monitoring sites don't show full details.

Save 4% in 401k to get the match, then 11% into a Roth account. If you invest like this in retirement accounts until your are 65, you will have millions. You don’t need to save harder for retirement.

Put any additional savings into your taxable brokerage account invest in an S&P500 index fund. This account can be for buying a house, a new car, vacations, etc.

You are in great shape. Save like above, but also live your life while you are young.

Only if you can negotiate a reasonable discount for the upfront payment.

Sounds like you have a plan. Saving aggressively now,will really help. Way to go!

You might die before the next month of rent and then your slum lord will just have extra free money

I’m in CA so it’s a different market (unsure how competiré NYC is) but when I was looking for rental I did something unconventional and would write a letter(like homebuyers do to homesellers) and include the link to my FB which was always professional and to my LinkedIn so the home owner would get a glimpse into who I was on a “personal” and “professional level”.

Technically speaking because of fair housing policies they can’t ask for anything of the sort but I found I got more call backs for tours when I did this than when I did not.

If that seems too personal an alternative may be simply making a 3-5 page Canva of what you are looking for in a rental, the type of tenant you’ll be and maybe references idk how non conventional you want to be - IF at all.

401k and save 10-30% of all you make. Live on a fraction of your earnings. So if you make 50k, learn to live on 20k a year.

Both good points. I’m in NYC. The market is just so odd at the moment, that I’m trying to think of ways to make my application more attractive. Perhaps I could prepay each quarter if allowed, but I’m just thinking aloud now.

In general no it isn’t. What is the benefit?

Get a Roth IRA. Get a 401k when you can too.

Try a different software, but I would NOT recommend TurboTax. They're a bit of a smarmy company and have been in trouble more than once for leading people to believe they can file their return for free, and then telling them after they've entered all or most of their info that they have to pay to file-- sometimes when they could have declined paying and still filed for free.