I’m 25 recently married for 7 months. I found this site and think its great that others are wondering the same that I am. Am I doing enough am I on the right track with my money?

I’m 25 my wife is 23, I went to a junior college $0 debt
My wife went to Penn State…..(giggles) $0 debt
We both work at NIH and love it!

We have a combine income of about $95,000
keep $5000 in checking at all times
Have about $153,000 in savings

Each have a Roth IRA with $5,000 ( just started)
And we have mutual fund accounts of 16,000 with monthly installments of $500
And Simple IRA with my work only about $3,500

0 in debt in our names no car payments student loans. Yes we still live with my in-laws who will not take a penny of rent (I’m not proud of this)

Questions let me know I love talking saving/investments.

I bought my house at 25 (now 27). I put 20% down on a liveable fixer upper to avoid PMI. My total house payment (taxes, insurance, mortgage) is almost half of rent of an apartment in that area and I work on the fixer upper a little bit at a time, taking advantage of sales and do as much as I can myself or with help from friends and family.

Got a quality used car and paid that off in less than a year (2 years ago). If I can, I want to drive this car for at least 10 more years. I’m pretty frugal in the areas I don’t care about, but I’m still able to spend money on things that I do care about so I never feel deprived. I rarely if ever make unplanned purchases.

I’m 27 and have $61k left on my mortgage which I hope to pay off by 33. I’m not making early payments (yes, I know it can save on interest) because even though I can’t earn as much interest as I would be saving by paying early, I feel more comfortable leaving the savings in a high yield savings and paying it off in bulk. This allows me access to the money for other money-saving opportunities that may come along that require an upfront investment. And I like not having it tied up. The only time I expect to pay extra on my mortgage is on my pay-off quote.

My financial port is not great but I graduated college with no student loans (I have to thank my family for that) and I’ve only had a full-time job for 3 years. My only debt is a $61k mortgage and 6k I owe on a 0% credit card that I will pay off before the 0% trial APR ends (the money went towards necessary home improvements so I’m hoping that it helped to raise the value of the property as well). I have 9k in a ROTH, and about 7k in my company’s 401K (includes the company match ups).

I don’t currently contribute to my ROTH and my saving account is only $400. It used to be 6k but I made the decision to pay my car off in 9 months (after learning it was costing $80/month in interest.) I was forced by my homeowner Insurance a few months ago to get a new roof (ah, the joys of home ownership). I’m at peace with it because I’ve saved at least that if not more with the low house payment, and I was going to replace the roof within a year or two anyway.

After I pay back my roof in about 6 months from money I borrowed on a 0% interest for a year Home Depot credit card, I will be back on the saving train.

I’m not calling anyone a liar, but to be honest I do question the under 30s who comment on financial blogs with what appears to be highly inflated numbers. The math just doesn’t add up, especially if they went to college for at least 4 years. Not saying they don’t have the money, but maybe they are counting their spouse’s or parents’ money lol, or they inherited it. I consider myself smart with money but even if the only thing I bought was food, and lived out of a cardboard box, time is not on my side and there is no way I could earn or have that much so early in my career and life.

I’m going to say that I want to be realistic and expect to have at least $70k in Retirement and savings by 30.

You would not believe how many people do not plan for kids–and I don’t mean people who accidently get pregnant…I get that it happens. I mean people who actually try to have kids but are in debt, don’t have their mortgage paid off or almost paid off, no savings…etc.

I am only 27 but I have learned that most of the difficulties of life are for lack of preparedness. I would rather face the difficulty of becoming prepared on my own terms, rather than because I’m forced to. It’s a whole different kind of stress when you push yourself to work hard, or save, or get a second job because you choose to, rather than because you HAVE to….both are stressful but guess which type of stress is preferable.