First off, thank you in advance for any input.
Lately I've been trying to get my financial life on track for the long term. I've been reading a lot about finance in many different areas and I'm having a brain overload tbh.
The question I'm asking y'all for help on is 401k vs Roth or both?
As of now, I just turned 33. In the past when I had a few dollars in my 401k accounts I always cashed it out (dumb, I know), but over this first year at my new job I'm at about $8700 ($5800 from me/$3k from my company which I'm at 20% vested so far). I'm salaried at $95k and based on this first year with this company, I'll total about $5-7k in bonuses. The company has a 50% match up to the first 4% so based on my math this should be up to about $1900.
My dad recently retired and said he wish he had moved his money to a Roth years ago, so I started looking into it and opened a self management Roth account and added VOO, SCHD, and VT. Unfortunately with my current expenses, I'm unable to max out my 401k but I know I can max out a Roth account.
So please give me some info to get me on the right track. Should I take the "extra" that went in my 401k last year and move it over as a start to maxing the Roth since it's still time to max 2025? Should I put just enough into the 401k moving forward to get the match then dump into the Roth and switch back to the 401k after if time allows? Should I just dump into the 401k as much as possible and not worry about the Roth? Should I just do the Roth and do something else with the remaining funds? Any help is appreciated. Thanks