What to Do With Your Next Dollar: A Financial Order of Operations
What do you do when you earn well and have generally dialed in the fundamentals: save, invest, reduce debt, stay protected? The challenge was never knowing what to do. It's knowing what to do first, and in what order.
That's a harder question than it looks. Each of these priorities is sound on its own. Max out the retirement contributions. Pay down the balances. Build the cushion. Put money to work in the market. But when they all compete for the same dollar at the same time, sound advice can quietly turn into paralysis.