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I recently interviewed for L7 EM at Google and had 4 great interviews and one not so great system design. I submitted external referrals all of which gave great feedback. The recruiter said the next step is team match/interviews and then the HC. Anyone in a similar situation? What was the result? Google
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With any personal finance questions the answer is it depends. Here is my case…
Max 401k pre-tax asap (24% fed bracket + state)
Reduce contributions to the minimum necessary to get match which now goes in as after tax with immediate conversion to Roth (Fidelity)
Early forties followed above but had higher contributions after tax (~10-15%) to build Roth bigger while getting the tax savings via pre-tax.
Now after 45 I switched to maxing 401k pre-tax at 10% to both get match and take longer to fill up. The difference is now going to my taxable account to build that up to support our goal to retire by 55 at the latest. I still hit the max pre-tax before the year ends and then the extra goes to Roth just not as much as before.
Extra point, once I hit the annual social security contribution limit, normally around June, that money also now goes to taxable account.
Overall I am saving between 30-35% of my gross across the accounts. This year is over 40% saving based on focused efforts. That includes the regular Roth and spousal Roth via backdoor methods. Will get to do the catch-up contributions soon which will help more too.
Beyond the above I now focus on reducing expenses further to open more to save as well as lots of reading to educate on managing it afterwards. Admittedly I enjoy this stuff and my spreadsheets 😁
For awareness, no kids, live in HCOL area and plan to move to LCOL for retirement. Also I started in earnest later, late 30’s so feel like I’m playing catchup.
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Cool. Thanks for the detailed explanation! Pretty impressive you plan to retire by 55. Are you working with a financial planner?
No all on my own. I now focus on educating myself via books and YouTube. Also I’m not depriving my wife or myself rather spending more intentionally. Early on I bought lots of stuff I didn’t need or really want but thought I did. Recognizing this and having a clear goal for why I was saving has helped a lot.
We eat out about once a week, take multiple vacations per year (low key) and save for future things like the next car or home improvement. At this point the only debt we have now is the mortgage ($4300/mn including taxes and insurance). I don’t buy anything we can’t pay for in full, even if use the credit card to get the rewards. Admittedly my single income makes this more realistic than when I first started out. If I was back at $100k per year I wouldn’t be saving as much but I also wouldn’t have the larger house and expenses to go with it.
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Fair points!