I prioritize as follows:
1) Work 401K -- max it out (and, this is just me, I put enough in to reach the stupid gov limit by about July so my paycheck jumps and then I get a period where (if shit happens) I have extra to pay down debt and (if no shit happens) invest what would have gone in the 401K into IRA. I also tend to opt to put after-tax money into the 401K (because it tends to perform well) and because I have that set up to backdoor to Roth.
2) Traditional IRA to Roth IRA Backdoor -- I make too much to deduct Traditional IRA (don't get me started...) and so I do this. Trad IRA has little value to me as a result. This country's retirement schemes are fucking stupid and setting us up for a disaster.
3) Brokerage -- these days, I'm pretty limited in what I invest to ETFs. I made good money on stocks pre-pandemic, but during the Biden administration, my portfolio has suffered. It is my ETFs that have been the most stable. I have to completely change my individual stock game now.
The government is eventually going to take away the ability to backdoor into a Roth IRA which is both understandable and at the same time infureating because, again, a Traditional IRA has no tangible tax benefit to anyone that surpasses the stupid income threshold. Why people who make more money are punished for saving for retirement baffles me. Dumbest shit ever.
And please don't follow Motley Fool. They get to taut themselves as gods because they buy stock, wait until their algorithm says is 80% to the top, then send a ton of emails out to recommend you buy it "long term". Then the stock achieves its max, they make mad money, and you gave it to them. I was given Motley as a gift and EVERY SINGLE RECOMMENDATION is a stock near its peak... then it tanks like a shot deer soon after.
And if you are going to invest in individual stocks - not recommended for beginners - you will need to begin to pay attention to global trends. For example, I bought a ton of Ericsson stock... but then they were outlawed from selling to China by The Party because western countries denied them selling their Chinese 5G products (which was a good decision). Unfortunately, that tanked the Ericsson stock. I was paying attention... I sold before. I could have waited a while but I saw a great gain from the anticipation of selling to China, took it, paid the taxes, and walked away. I had to be reading business news and industry news to stay ahead of it. It took a shit ton of time. With an ETF, you just pay a small % for someone to do that.
I don't invest in anything from Reddit.
I won't invest in anything weed related until there is forward progress to legalize it at the federal level.
I am buying airlines. I believe they will go back up after the tolerance for dealing with COVID restrictions ends (hopefully in 2022).
This is not investment advice.
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