Personal Finance

TL;DR: index funds and tax-protected accounts.

Index funds because none of us (including the professionals who study them all day long) know enough about individual companies and the future of the economy to pick winners consistently. Investing in "everything" averages out the winners and losers and gives you the natural growth of human activity.

Tax protected accounts because you'll make withdrawals at a time when your income is (presumably) lower, and deferring income to that time means deferring taxes to the lower tax bracket. In the US, tax protected accounts have special purposes: education, healthcare, retirement.

At 48, education is probably only relevant if you want to pay for kids' college, and that's what [https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc313](529 plans) are for.

You are definitely coming to the point in life where, regardless of your general health, you will begin to incur healthcare costs. In the US, that's an incredibly complex topic, but one aspect to be aware is [https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/health-savings-account-hsa/](Health Savings Account). You have to be on 'high deductible' insurance to qualify for these, so probably not empoyer-sponsored insurance, but if you're self-insuring through the marketplace, many of the lowest-premium plans qualify. HSA will let you save around $4000/year tax-deductible and tax-free, with the restriction that it can only be used for healthcare costs (not insurance premiums) until age 65, at which point the money becomes available for any purpose, still tax-free.

Retirement is probably you main long-term concern. If your employer offers a 401(k), you can put up to $22k in that every year. If your income is $42k, you pay $3200 in OASDI and around $1500 in Federal income tax. Putting $20k in a 401(k) will reduce your declarable income to $22k, your OASDI tax to $1700 and Federal tax to $0, effectively giving you an extra $3000/year to spend/save. 401(k) money is fully taxable when withdrawn, but if you have to withdraw $18k/year (1500/month) after retirement, that is still below the Federal tax threshold (depending on your social security benefits).

For sure, if your employer offers any kind of match to your 401(k) contributions, contribute at least enough to get all of that match. It's literally free money.

Non-employer retirement accounts are IRAs, either Traditional (tax deductible contributions, tax deferred withdrawals) or Roth (taxable contributions, tax free withdrawals), with $6500/year contribution limits. Roth makes retirement planning very easy, because however much you have saved is what you can spend, but they also mean paying taxes on that money today. In your case, at a marginal tax rate of (7.65+12) = 19.65%, that means $1280/year, where, as with the 401(k), it looks like your after-retirement tax rate will be around 0%, anyway. For most people who qualify, traditional IRA is the lower cost solution, even though it increases the after-retirement tax cost.

Finally, I'm not a pro, this is all just information I've picked up. If you're really unsure, it might be worth your peace of mind to find a fee-only financial advisor and pay them a few hundred dollars for a consultation. Think of it like therapy for your financial mental health. They'll give you completely boiler-plate advice, but they know all this stuff inside and out, and should be able to set you on a good path in just one meeting. Don't sign up for an annual contract.

Why so weirdly touchy about a house??

The Personal Finance wiki from that other site has a Prime Directive flowchart that spells out how you should allocate windfalls. Here's the US flowchart but they have them for other countries with their respective finance programs.

In short, if you already are able to live off a smaller income, build an emergency fund so you don't go backwards, then pay your future self. Don't inflate your expenses unnecessarily because that just makes the goal of retirement cost more in the end.

I’m going to take a slightly different approach, although I generally agree with all of the advice here.

1. Establish an emergency fund. If you’ve been living paycheck to paycheck and do not have a significant amount of money in accessible savings, you’re taking a risk of not being able to handle something like a car repair or unemployment. Withdrawing funds from tax-advantaged retirement accounts can take time and incur significant financial penalties. The rule of thumb is to figure out what you spend in a month, and plan on an emergency fund that can carry you through 6 months of zero income. Some people do less, some do more, and if you’re really thinking about it you can figure out what expenses you can cut in order to make those savings go further.
2. Putting money into a matched 401k is a no-brainer, and going with an index fund or retirement date fund is the easiest way to go. However, realistically examine the expected savings by the time you plan to retire. This tells you how much you’ll be able to draw down and for how long. I’m going off of memory here, but I think the consensus safe draw down rate is 4% per year. That means $1M in retirement savings will give you about $40k per year to live on (not including things like social security). Depending on where and how you live, this might be sufficient. You’d have to plan for it though, which is my point.
3. There are plenty of retirement calculators online to help with this. You enter your age, when you want to retire, the amount you’re saving, and it will tell you what your savings will be when you’re 65 (or whatever) and how long it will last at different draw down rates. Some will let you estimate things like rate of return too. Be realistic.
4. Realize that the closer you get to retirement, the more conservative your investments should be. To paint with a very broad brush, low risk=low reward, high risk=high reward. The further you are from retirement, the longer you have to recover from a downturn. Look at the retirement date targeted funds - they move over time from a more speculative set of investments to a more reliable one. What I’m saying here is that you’ll read things about being able to plan around a 10% rate of return. That’s the average for a stock based portfolio, and it can swing around quite a bit. Individual stocks have a higher risk than an s&p index fund, and the index fund will have a higher risk than a conservative, income-oriented fund. Remember that when you’re using those retirement planning web sites.

The general advice goes like this; If your work offers a match on a 401k then contribute up to the match. If you have more money, max out an IRA. If you have more money, max out the 401k.

If your health plan is a high deductible plan with an HSA you can also contribute to this. They are designed for health expenses but they can also serve as an additional tax advantaged retirement account.

Beyond that you'd be investing through a taxable brokerage account.

As far as what to invest in, S&P500 index funds are usually advised since they tend to capture the overall average returns of the market. Target retirement funds are another option if you want a set it and forget it option that will rebalance to less risky investments as you near retirement age.

Put that first $2k into an IRA before the end of the year.

This is all great advice in this thread that I can vouch for. If you have more questions post more threads - this investing stuff is more or less a "solved" math problem so you'll generally get "the right answer" from anyone in this community.

There's also more to learn beyond what to buy and where it goes. You should also look into the psychology and strategy of Boglehead investing. You'll need the nerves/rationality to never ever sell your stocks or react to market changes in any way. Don't even look at the market or your money ideally. Set a course and trust the math. The best way to lose invested money is by touching it. The more you touch it, the more you lose. Index fund investing is so simple that you may feel anxious that you are not doing enough - this is normal and it's important that you don't start fiddling with your money by e.g. tilting towards tech or trying crypto etc.

Max our employer contributions to 401k then use a managed plan that adjusts risk based on your age

What are your goals? Most people answer retirement, but I have friends who for genetic reasons will die at 55, they have different goals.

A house can be a great investment if you pay it off before you retire, since then you live there rent free. (You still have taxes and maintenance costs). However you have much less time to pay it off. Houses are about location though, for some they are great investments, for others really bad. You need to stay in the same house for many years though, if you move they are too risky.

In the US social security payments increase the longer you wait, so plan to retire at 72, or maybe draw down non ss funds first.

Are you married? This is a personal decision, but your spouse's savings and income are factors as well.

Max out your yearly maximum of $10,000 in Series I savings bonds, purchased from the US Treasury.

Or, like others are probably saying, create your own retirement portfolio that allows you to defer income tax payments until you retire.

Whole lotta folks are gonna recommend index funds, if you’re in the US, I highly recommend putting money into a Roth IRA up to the yearly limit. But don’t forget about a safety net, savings rates are high enough right now y hat you can keep a couple months rent and expenses in a savings acct to keep some more liquid cash on hand for emergencies than keeping it in the market

There is lots of great advice here. I don't want to cause contraversy, but I would suggest to invest between 10-20% of the investment money into high risk assets such as cryptocurrencies.

I have most of my investments in different funds (tech, medicine), a bit in a savings account (for emergencies) and a bit in crypto. I know there I a lot of hate there, but they have proven that they are here to stay. There is lots of fluctuations that can be hard on the nerves, but in the end, even though this is where I put 20%, it is today worth more than the rest combined.