don't make me ponder this breh
Alright. chicken or egg question. Which should be done first, aggressively create a 6month -2year savings or invest moderately, while saving moderately after being 3+ months ahead in finances.
Take stock of your monthly expenses. Annualize that. Consider this your operating expenses.
This number is now your savings goal for the year. You can pad this number a bit for a challenge.
Do the above for 2 to 3 years.
The money saved is your cash runway.
I like your idea of having your bills paid 3 months in advance.
I, personally, do 4 months in advance. Pay bills 3 times a year and done.
After you have done the above, devise ways to reduce or cut your expenses. An easy one to dump is cable/satellite.
As to debt and debt reduction, below is an idea:
You can leverage debt against debt in order to compress amortization schedules (pay off debt more rapidly).
This presumes you either have, can acquire, or improve your credit in which to take advantage of the tactic.
As to investing, I'm all about FI/RE (Financial Independence / Retire Early). If you are a minimalist, FI/RE may be right for you.
Your savings rate has a direct correlation to how soon you can early retire.
Another idea is to save, reduce debt, and invest in tandem by way of a "shifting ratio strategy".
We should factor taxes into all of this as well because taxes have a tremendous impact on our bottom line.
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