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Originally Posted by The God Hypothesis
Can you do Roth catch up all at once? Also would you suggest hiring a financial adviser, or use a site like Vanguard and do all this yourself. I read on these topics all the time but at the end of the day I get total paralysis by analysis, so I turn to CP, where everyone has their financial phd's.
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Originally Posted by Jewish Rabbi
It's a personal preference. With your mortgage rate right at inflation, I wouldn't feel like you need to pay that off. Same goes with the car, no need to pay it off early. Some people just don't feel comfortable holding debt, however.
I would make sure your company match is met in 401(k), then max out a Roth IRA for both you and your wife, max out your 401(k), then put whatever remaining in index funds, in that order.
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I agree with all of this as well. You make quite a bit of money so no reason you shouldn't be maxing our your 401k and contribuiting the max to your Roth but if you can't do both, make sure you contribute enough to your 401k to get the highest match from your company as you can. Then contribute rest of money earmarked for retirement into a Roth. Calculate what you think you'll need in retirement per month, how long you might live in retirement and determine if you savings amount will meet your needs. There are many online calculators to help you with this.
If you feel like you are going to be into mostly low cost mutual funds or ETFs with investing, I'd just manage that yourself and re-balance maybe twice a year to keep within whatever risk you are comfortable with. If you plan to mix in quite a bit of individual stocks or make quite a bit of moves, a financial planner might be an option but I'm not sold that they get you ahead since you have to pay them a percentage of what you are making. If you plan to work quite a bit longer I'd manage much of that myself and get a financial planner later is your feel uncomfortable with how large your assets become over time.