So you think the era of cheap money and speculative investments are coming back in the near future?

Pay down any extra you can, find a 3% balance transfer, and make a plan to actually pay down to 0 during the promo term.

You should be able to find a card that will give you a 150-200 bonus to offset the transfer fee.

VTSAX is the entire us stock market. That is plenty diversified. You can think about bonds or international.

“Hi do we have access to an after tax 401k, sometimes called the mega back door Roth?”

But is that the step you’re on based on the flow chart?

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What are the mechanics of moving to something like a target date fund, if I had been fully invested in equities for the previous ~30 or so years? Sell the equities and simply buy into a target date fund?

Not an issue, it is all preference. I personally prefer VTWAX because I like to have more international exposure. I will add bonds when I turn 40ish.

You do realize fortunes have been lost n this last 12 months right? Fortunes and investors and companies. But you want to invest in it?

You can buy real estate in communities or even states you don't live in. I'm on the west coast and my RE portfolio is all in the mid west. This book is a basic overview: https://www.audible.com/pd/Long-Distance-Real-Estate-Investing-Audiobook/B078J6JBPC?source_code=GPAGBSH0508140001&ipRedirectOverride=true&gclid=CjwKCAiAxvGfBhB-EiwAMPakqn65zrwrYg1NFwY8lgaZBwTBajRr6DaZsPXQN_K-XLOMKEycPNcBBRoC8IYQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

>I'll be coming in at a GS5-1, with Excepted Schedule A service.. You think it's impossible for me to make GS10 by the time I'm in my early 30s?

It took me 7 years to go from GS5-1 to GS 12-1, with one change in job title.

What is they range for your position? My first position started at GS5 with promotions to GS6 and GS7 at one year intervals. I changed jobs within the same office to a job that had a pay scale range of GS7 to GS12 about 9 months into GS7, to early to get bumped to GS9 right away and had to wait another full year for that bump. After that I got annual promotions to 9 / 11 / 12, where I've been for a while. Positions above 12 don't open up that frequently and have a lot of competition. That said, GS12-4 hits 100k/year.

This is with a small agency, so I don't know how things will work for you. Worst case, build your resume, take all the free training you can get, and if your advancement stalls, keep an eye on usajobs.com It's usually fairly easy to get a lateral change with a higher promotion potential if you don't mind changing agencies once or twice and have good performance evaluations.

Don't burn bridges, stay on good terms with everyone, and network. People, especially senior people, network and people talk. Having a good reputation will go a long ways.

I doubt it’s a mistake - if you moved in during the middle of the month, it makes sense that you’d be charged prorated rent for February ($250). The question is whether the rent portion of that $1300 is for March or for your last month’s rent. You’re going to have to just ask your landlord. We can only guess, and we don’t have enough information. There’s nothing wrong with asking your landlord for clarity on what the payments are going toward.

They were probably more so asking why you are the only person out of three household incomes to have some sort of emergency fund. Is your brother an adult? What does "works some hours" mean?

That isn’t investing, go to Vegas if you want to gamble, you’ll get some free drinks and maybe a free room and buffet

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Thank you

New job equals new health care plan witch means your deductible starts over. Just really think about it before you take the new job and the time you quit and start the new job and when the benefits start with them.

Not 100% stocks. You can’t afford to risk a possible 30% portfolio hit when you’re within a few years of retirement.

A target date fund would probably be a prudent move in a few more years. If you don’t want to risk 100% stocks (and you shouldn’t), let the pros worry about asset allocation.

...maybe take out a loan?

What you're spending the money on doesn't matter. The question is whether the investments you have will outpace the loan amount. It was one thing when interest rates were 2.5%, but completely different when you're looking at a 7% (or whatever).

The only way you should be asking whether the real estate returns will be bigger than the investments is whether you should do it at all.

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Consider the cost and benefit of each option.

If you continue to put the money in retirement accounts, you get the employer match, and the long term value of the compound interest, which is pretty high considering how many years it'll be there. You can calculate both of these values (use a retirement calculator for the latter).

The cost of this option is how much interest you'll need to pay on student loans for the tuition money that you would have had if you hadn't put that money into retirement savings. You can calculate this value as well.

Now you can compare the dollar cost of each option, and weigh how much you care about the long term benefit of a few extra thousand dollars vs the loans you'll have to take. You can also weigh how much loan you'll need to take either way.

Without any of those numbers, I'd lean towards saving the cash and not putting so much in retirement. You can wait a couple years to save there and spend the money investing in yourself up front. The few extra thousand in retirement will not make a big difference in the long run.

Also, good luck with software engineering, it's worked out quite well for me.

What to go for when ~10 years from retirement?

Yeah but it climbed higher after the FED rate hike decreased from 50 to 25 points.