Writing my final student loan check!

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the last of a 55k loan.

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Up yours.

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Where to next?

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Sounds like you've got a decent road map. I'd go with a few Vanguard funds rather than dividend stocks at first, but whatever.

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And to celebrate I want to buy some used snowboarding equipment for the winter.

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Good plan. I make a decent living and the pants I'm wearing came from ebay.

Cool.

Our Roth IRA's consist of a mixture of Vanguard ETFs and 1 target retirement fund.

After I've maxed everything out, should I just start investing in a regular brokerage acct through Vanguard?

I'm a new job (just got out of the USMC) so this will be my first time contributing to an 401k

I haven't started it yet but I am assuming that I should be going with a Roth 401k?

What degree did you obtain while taking out the 55k? How long to pay off?

Also, it might be beneficial to look into maxing the 401k to the yearly limit before opening a brokerage account in order to lower your tax bill and take advantage of the tax free growth.

I was wondering how long he had been in the USMC because if it was over 10 years he needs to potentially not write that check.

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Maybe, maybe not. The general idea is that if you think you'll be in a higher tax bracket today than in retirement, you should go with the traditional instead of the Roth. Personally, I do the traditional 401 and a Roth IRA but one can reasonably argue for going Roth in both.

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A lot depends on current income too. If you can't deduct the contributions to a traditional IRA, then that may change the perspective. And once a standard 401k reaches a certain level of value, a person may want to balance things out a bit by going the Roth 401k route (if it's available), or dividing the contributions between a standard and a Roth. Clark Howard and another fellow I sometimes listen to both have had some interesting ideas on diversifying retirement account types, but their ideas are always based on current income and future prospects. As for where the tax code may go in years to come, who knows? The anointed future queen says she's going to rewrite the code when she gets her crown. So I figure any "greedy, evil doer" who earns more than six figures is going to have some 'splainin to do.

Congratulations! Can't wait to have that day myself.

Jealous. We still have another +/- 6 years. I would much rather be writing those checks for a condo on the beach than $248k of student loans.