Hello,

I'm a 22 year old who currently lives with his grandparents rent-free. I chip in whenever there's a need.

I currently have $12,500 in savings. No debt. No car. No relationship.

Here are my "stats":

http://puu.sh/5J8em.xlsx

I'm 5 months into my first "real" job as an accountant.

My first 401k contribution is this Friday. My employer matches 100% the first 3% and 50% the next 2% (5% contribution nets 9%). My allocation as follows:

http://puu.sh/5J8iU.png

All three are at 0.72%. The other options all have 1.09 % expense ratios. I also intend to dump $5,500 x2 (2013 and 2014) into a Roth IRA with Vanguard before April 2014, Admiral status and all that stuffs.

What must I do to retire by my mid-40s?

Edit:

Thank you all for replying. Here’s some additional information.

Living Situation

I will probably continue living with my grandparents until they die. My family is Chinese, so they're big on family staying together. My grandparents used to live with my father. However, one of my grandparents and my step-mom doesn't see eye to eye, so they moved out to one of my dad's second house. After graduating, I moved in to keep an eye on them.

Relationship?

I've never been in a relationship, and don't intend to until I'm happy with myself (financially, mentally, and physically). Seeing my guy friends buy their girlfriends a bunch of stuff for Christmas, I can only think "Wow..." It's going to be hard to find a girl who'd be interested in a miser like me! (That I also am interested in)

So yeah... that'll be awhile.

Buying a House

I would like to one day buy a house, but that'll have to wait until Post-Tax Savings from below start making me "extra" money.

I live in the SF Bay Area, so that's going to be a hefty amount!

Income Increases

I'm aiming for 10-20% raises annually. I'm... pretty confident that it's doable.

Lifestyle Inflation

I've told myself I'd go shopping for clothes 3 months ago. I still haven't. I agonize over every small purchase... I don't think my life-style will inflate at at higher rate than my income!

Post-Tax Savings

I intend to do one of the following with my post-tax savings:

• Down payment on multi-family housing (so many ways to play with taxes here)

• Long-term "growth" stocks with a brokerage firm (I still believe in the US economy)

• Index funds (if I am lazy).

Of course, I will run the numbers on all three options before I commit, but that's probably going to be quite a bit in the future!

Annual Living Expenses after Retirement

Lets just put 50k/year as a base-line. I'm probably fine with half that. But I think like a dragon. HOARD HOARD HOARD!

401k Contributions Amount

I picked 5% because of a multitude of reasons:

• Match stops at 5%

• Expense ratios are poop

• I want to have post-tax savings of $24,000/year for one of the things in Post-Tax Savings

• 59.5 to withdraw without penalties (unless I want to jump through hoops)

Note that I will increase the contribution amount as my income increases.

I am also going to start planting seeds in an attempt to get my company to switch to a better 401k program. Nobody's going to listen to a 5-month old upstart, so it will take awhile.

IRA Choice

I chose Roth IRA because my marginal tax rate is relatively low, and I intend to have passive income during retirement.

Portfolio Composition

Until my 401k has lower expense ratios, or I have enough in my IRA to have a healthy composition of bond and equity funds at a low expense ratio, my portfolio will be 100% stock. The first $11,000 in my IRA will probably be in an admiral class equity fund.

So yeah, I'll adjust to a more conservative allocation as time passes (and my retirement fund increases).

My Life...

I honestly don't really know what I want to do with my life... So I've set this retirement as a goal... for now. It's a moving target, and to be honest, I still feel like a five year old who has yet to realize what the world has to offer. So... I might as well save so that I'm ready to do... anything!