re: Roth IRA

It's pretty much a no brainer. Money goes in post-tax, and is not taxed when taken out in retirement at age 59.5 or older on the growth and cash you put in. You can take the cash value of it out without penalty as well at any age if you ever "need extra money" for an emergency (or any reason really). So say for example after 3 years you've put in $18k cash into the account, and you keep a $10k emergency fund on the side, but something comes up that costs you $15k, you could withdraw the extra $5k from your ROTH IRA and get that covered if you need to.

There's also no RMD in retirement unlike traditional IRA and 401k. So you arent forced to take distributions from it like other other retirement accounts if you dont want to.

Best part is you can choose to open it up with whoever and pick literally any investments pretty much out there for it so options are pretty endless. We have my wife's Roth IRA through vanguard and mine is with etrade. You can be as aggressive or conservative as you want with it.