As a rough flowchart 1. Get a reasonable emergency fund (reasonable varies from person to person, but at least 3 months of living expenses is good) 2. Max out

As a rough flowchart 1. Get a reasonable emergency fund (reasonable varies from person to person, but at least 3 months of living expenses is good) 2. Max out tax advantaged investment accounts. Rough priorities, specific ranking again depends on your situation: HSA, matched 401k, Roth IRA, unmatched 401k, anything else (mega backdoor Roth, 529, etc). The Boglehead approach, aka VTSAX & Chill, is pretty good. You can throw everything in a target date retirement account, or manually balance yourself between a US stock fund, international stock fund, and bonds (don't worry too much about bonds when you're in yours 20s) 3. Taxable investment account 4. If you plan on using some of the money in 1-5 years, check out I-bonds as a way to keep up with inflation with no risk... Well OK not no risk, but as long as the US Government doesn't default on its debts the risk is infinitesimally low.