<prompt> Human: I am 22 years old.I currently work for the military. I am very frugal, and have been saving 2500 month, I still support myself and am not a burden on friends or family.I have 40,000 to invest right now, and plan on saving and additional 60,000 in the next 2 years before I go to college, for a total of 100k to invest while I go to school. I plan on picking a STEM degree and working in a lucrative field until my investments hopefully are making enough for me to live off of, and then relax, travel the world, and work odd jobs on my own schedule. I dont care for status, comfort, or a keeping up with the joneses lifestyle. I just want to be free.So, my question to you is: how should I use my money to do this? I know a bit about investing and am looking at 1 buying real estate and 2 Vanguard ETFs. What do you think?Assistant: Paul Merriman shows 3 risk-ranked portfolios made up of your extremely low-cost TSP funds. They are even lower expense than Vanguard. Human: I was initially putting koney into the TSP, but stopped because I dont want to wait until Im dead to use the money. Id like to have access to it before 60 - preferrably in my 40s.  <response>: PUT MONEY IN TSP. First, youre likely going to live past 58.5, so you may not want to be impoverished when you get there. Second, as long as you have a reasonable balance when you separate, you can roll subsequent 401ks into TSP. That saves you enormous sums of money. Third, you need to look at rfinancialindependences FAQ on how to use tax advantaged accounts e.g. TSP well before traditional retirement age without added penalty. 