You might get to $3 million. You have about $460k now. If you keep adding $24k per year, I come to $2.8 million twenty years from now, assuming a 7% return.

What would help is:

• socking away more money, starting as soon as you can. The longer that money can grow, the more it will become. Saving an extra $10k now is better than saving $10k when you're 60.
• reducing your expenses now and also when you're retired
• pay off debt and reduce your ongoing liabilities/bills. If you plan to continue to live in your current house, this could include making the house more energy efficient and buying/building things that last forever instead of just ten years (so good quality furniture and appliances and things like that).

By the way, I'd take social security into account for say half of the currently promised amount. If that gives say $40k/year after age 67, that means that by that age it represents about 25 x $40k = $1 million of net worth that you don't need to save up.

On these bigger one-time payments often a larger percentage is withheld. As I understand it, it could even be obligated by the IRS to do it like this.

So you will have to wait to get it back.

However, when you get a new job in 2023, you could aim to under-withhold some taxes there, so that every paycheck is a bit bigger, and after the end of 2023 you get a smaller refund. (Use the IRS W4 calculator to get the "correct" amount of taxes withheld, taking into account all that you earned and will earn in 2023 and the amount of money that was already withheld).

Very important to understand the difference between volatile and risky

Your wife should get her own credit card, a starter card or a secured credit card, and build her credit with little day-to-day purchases on the card and always paying the full credit statement amount before the due date. That will build her credit score.

Meanwhile, of course put any bigger payments on the credit card that earns travel points.

As for investing, I'd open an account with Vanguard (or Fidelity or Charles Schwab) and go for their low-fee diversified index funds or ETFs. A book you could read (perhaps before doing this) is "The simple path to wealth" by JL Collins.

> I've heard a lot about how the standard "get a job, IRA and investment portfolio" won't be enough for us to retire.

Well... depends on the size of the investment portfolio, I'd say. Other things you could do is 1. keep your expenses low, don't give into lifestyle inflation 2. don't have (a lot of) kids and 3. try to take care of your health (to reduce healthcare costs in older age).

With number 1 would also come not living in a very fancy house and not driving the fanciest cars.

> Finally, I'd like to maximize my money for today, be able to make big purchases, go on vacations etc.

As Paula Pant, financial podcaster, says: You can afford anything, but not everything. Making a big purchase now means retiring later, later. So you've got to ask yourself what you really want to do and achieve on your always-limited income.

I would consider saving 0% in the 401k right now, but saving A LOT in your savings account for the move. But then after the move you should start putting in 10%.

> The maturity date of the pension is 67 years old.

So I'm not sure what exactly the consequences are of "reaching maturity", but I'm guessing it means that if you take money out now, you lose out on having much more money later on. This might be a reason why the pension provider advises against it.

Another reason could be for people who have a high income now (because they're still working) and who will have a lower income later. If you take a distribution in a high earning year, you'll probably pay way more taxes on the distribution than if you had waited until a low income year.

Third, you may need this money much much more when you're in your 70s than you do now.

Finally, it could of course be that the fact that it is also in their own best interest to advise you to keep your money safe with them plays a small role.

That's a nice low interest rate, so I would not pay those student loans down quicker than necessary.

I would put in enough in your workplace's 401k to get the maximum match if despite the move you plan to continue to work for this company. If not, then I would not raise your investments until you've moved and settled.

I would then also start saving in ernst for your move in the fall. Moves generally cost money, you don't have a lot in savings just yet, so go go go.

1. Use birth control and protection at all times when engaging in sex
2. Consider becoming an independent contractor (with nice high hourly prices) - but work towards it first by becoming a good software developer and building up a potential client-base.

Please ignore this advice if you're a visitor in a hospital and an alarm starts beeping.

Same if you're a visitor and touring a nuclear plant and an alarm starts beeping.

You're a year younger now than I was when I started getting more serious about my finances. So you're ahead of me in that regard.

I agree with others to open a Roth IRA. I'd do it with Vanguard, but Fidelity or Charles Schwab also are good options. Then put $6k in there for 2022, and when January 2023 rolls around put in $6500 for the year of 2023 (the maximum limit is going up by $500 for 2023).

Once money is in the account (the IRA is an account type), you still need to invest the money. If I aim for 40 years from now (when you're 66 and hopefully still healthy and alive), then I'd go for the target date fund of 2065 (okay okay, that's 42-43 years from now). For Vanguard that would be the Vanguard Target Retirement 2065 Fund, VLXVX for short. For Fidelity it would be the Fidelity Freedom® Index 2065 Fund Investor Class, FFIJK for short. The word index is important here because it means it's investing in indexes with low costs which is good and also the words investor class are important to get to the fund that let's you start with a "low" investment amount below 5 million). For Charles Schwab it would be the Schwab Target 2065 Index Fund (again: the word index is important).

Charles Schwab and Fidelity also have target date funds that are actively managed. They don't have the word "index" in their title and cost more but probably won't bring more profits. Hence my advice to go for the "index" variants. Vanguard's target date funds are always comprised of index funds.

If you marry at any point during the year, you can file "married filing jointly" for the full tax year. It would save you a lot on taxes this year. It is of course also a legally binding marriage, meaning it's still a pretty big commitment already.