I am a little unsure where to put my money at this point in my life. I have followed all the basic advice on what to do with your money and now I am at a point where I just don't know what to do next. It's kind of a boring point in my financial life, but I certainly can't complain for my age. So here is where I am at:
26 years old, making ~50k/yr (United States)
No credit card, car, or student loan debt
10 months and growing emergency savings
Company stopped matching 401k, but still putting in what I was before (6%)
Maxing out my Roth IRA for the past 2 years
Own a home with ~80k left on a 20yr mortgage @ ~4.2%
Should I just work at maxing out my 401k? But then I am tied to my company's 401k investment plan with a rather large sum of money per year (up to 16k I believe). Are there options to do this on my own with similar benefits?
Serious investing in stocks and such on my own looks very interesting, but don't think I am quite to that point yet if I can't max my 401k. I wouldn't even know where to start with that anyways. Although I thought the same thing about my Roth IRA at one point as well...
The easiest option I can see is to simply start dumping into my mortgage, which I will likely do to some degree regardless in the next year. But with that interest rate and my current age, I feel like there should be something better to do with the money.
So any advice on where to go from here? Thanks.
Edit: Additional information I either didn't know or didn't know was relevant originally:
- Tax Bracket 15%, should be able to stay here for the next few years with some 401(k) contributions
- 401(k) expense ratio ~1.2% throughout