Investment suggestions for money in bank, IRA and 401k or paying mortgage - Starting from scratch

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Investment advice for beginners..just getting started

Account type. For the first $5500/yr, you’ll probably want to pick between Roth IRA and Traditional IRA. Since you have very little saved right now, a Roth could also function as an emergency fund. If you’re a W-2 employee (as opposed to a 1099 contractor), you don’t have any other options for a retirement account, so any additional money (above the $5500/yr) could go into a regular taxable brokerage account. If you’re 1099, you could consider SEP IRA (maybe even instead of or in addition to Rot…

The second section applies to you.

I would not pay off a 15yr fixed at 2.75%. If inflation heats up, you may be earning more than that on your savings account before you pay off your mortgage. And if we don’t have another recession or crash, stocks might return more than that in the long run.