Originally Posted by bama_earl
Basically what Irish said but I made some changes:

I would say:

1. Save up an emergency fund.
2, Pay off debt.
3. Work up to maxing out your 401k contributions.
4. Start putting what extra money you have in an ETF that tracks the S&P 500.


That is a good plan too, but all our 401k money is in investments that mirror the S&P 500 and I wanted cash that was more liquid in case a real estate investment opportunity appears that we want to invest in and renovate, but currently the real estate market is not contusive to investment so I parked all that money in 3 large CD's and those are stair stepped with one maturing every 6 months. One 6 month, one 12 month and one 18 month and all of those are earing over 5% each. We're puling in about $1500 a month just off of those 3 CD's and all of them are FDIC insured. So it's a safe place to park some cash. I'm only 2 months from retirement.

We will probably use those CD's and the savings as extra income until we are forced to start taking money from our 401k plans due to the RMD's.