VHCOL, okay on retirement savings, limited ‘immediate’ savings, seeking sanity check/advice

Hi Reddit,

Using a throwaway for privacy but frequent this sub. I (31M) make a solid salary (c. $150k plus 20-30% bonus) in a VHCOL costal city and have been pretty diligent about saving for retirement, but seeking some insight on whether I’m over contributing to retirement at the expense of ‘immediate’ financial needs over the next year (and really, the next 5-10 years), and any thoughts on what I can do better.

Income breakdown:

Gross biweekly pay: $6250

Taxes (City, State, Federal): $2260

Benefits: $100 (includes modest $40/ pay period contribution to HSA)

Retirement:

$875 per pay period to pre-tax/Traditional 401k (current balance $97k, all in a target date fund). My employer offers a flat 3% of salary match once per year regardless of employee contribution which is a real shame from a compounding perspective. This match will hit in March and will take me into the six figures in my 401k, which I’m pretty excited about!

$125 to a defined benefit pension plan — I am still unclear on how much I can expect in retirement from this, but figure it can’t hurt and don’t expect this to make up for a significant portion of income in retirement. More just a ‘nice to have’ to supplement 401k drawdowns and SS (hopefully… if it is still around).

Take home: $2880 biweekly, $5670 monthly

I also take home about 700 dollars/month from a rental property in which I have a partial stake so call it $6,370 in monthly take home.

I am expecting to receive a 20% bonus (conservatively) in march , taking home c. $15k. I have suspended my 401k contribution for this bonus specifically, to help 1) pay off debt in a lump sum (see below), 2) open a Roth IRA and fully fund for FY2025, 3) add some degree of starter emergency fund buffer and 4) put the rest aside as a down payment for a ring for my girlfriend

Monthly expenses:

Rent: $2650

Credit card expenses: roughly $3100/month on average.

Only current debt is about $7,000 in credit card debt, which I plan to pay down in full in March. This is much higher than I normally carry — I had an unusually expensive January with annual CC fee (one of the expensive travel cards), a new suit I needed for work (c. $1,200) and international travel. I try to keep CC spend to the 3100 figure above, which is higher than I’d ideally like but comes with the VHCOL territory.

Non Retirement Savings:

– $12k taxable brokerage in various equities (I do not regularly contribute to this as I don’t really seem to have the free cash flow to).

– $11k in ESPP stock. I had previously contributed to this as part of every paycheck, but given the company’s stock has remained largely stagnant/even declined slightly in the past couple of years, I decided to pause contributions until I am making more money down the line and can more comfortably afford this. I believe the discount is 15% of the share price on the date of purchase. I still have about a year until I can sell the first bit of that stock at a more favorable tax rate (my understanding is that the tax rate is very unfavorable if you sell your shares within the first two years of ownership), but do not have a specific plan for these funds so can put towards a house, kid expenses, emergency fund, taxable brokerage, etc as needed.

– $650 in an HYSA (not so high yield these days) — I plan to put whatever is left from my bonus after paying debts and starting ROTH IRA into this account)

– aside from the above I tend to have $200-300 bucks in my checking account as a buffer each month

Other relevant info:

I currently do not have a Roth IRA but plan on opening one prior to the April 15 deadline for 2025 contribution (with the goal being to put 2 years worth of contributions in 2026). Based on what I understand with my AGI, I will need to open a traditional IRA and backdoor it into a ROTH.

My HSA currently has about $2000 in it (uninvested, just sitting in the account). I have only recently learned about the triple tax advantaged nature of an HSA and the personal finance flow chart in the wiki, so may taper down 401k contributions a bit to facilitate higher HSA contributions. Given I don’t have a substantial savings buffer at present I have kept this money aside for any significant medical expenses that may arise. I do not have an emergency fund set aside (part of the point of this post, and something I’d like to change), so the HSA is the closest thing to that I’ve got.

Planning to leave the city lifestyle to buy in the burbs within 18 months. Will likely not have the 20% to put down so just planning on paying the PMI every month. Better take on the debt and starting building equity than continuing to piss money away in rent every month. In an ideal world we would purchase a multifamily and house hack one of the units. I do not currently own a car but will likely need to purchase one with this move (I imagine the move from VHCOL city to MCOL burbs will help offset the expense of payments, insurance, maintenance, gas etc.).

Within the same timeline, I am planning on a ring/wedding planning with my girlfriend. Likely a real diamond not a lab grown (I know, not a great financial decision, but this woman is the best thing that has ever happened to me). Children will likely be in the offing fairly quickly given our age, so planning on 529s, etc. at some point in the near future.

I apologize for the poor formatting on this post, but really just seeking a sanity check from the folks in here — does it make sense to roll my 401k contributions back (maybe down to 1-2%), given employer match described above to set aside some money for savings, and if so, how long should I keep the contributions that low? I don’t feel that I need six months of emergency funds given my current risk tolerance, however I’d like closer to 3 months rather than my current zero. It feels like I am staring down the barrel of a few significant expenses in the coming years and starting to get concerned that I’ve backloaded my savings into retirement funds without having enough savings in hand to address immediate needs. What would you do in my shoes?