<prompt> Human: I am a high income individual making around 180,000 a year in Seattle in both stock compensation and salary. Due to some very bad investments and unemployment issues I find myself at 50 years old with no savings, and have just now dug myself out of debt. The only assets I have are my 45K 401K plan and 2 paid off used cars.I have zero debt.By the end of 2018 I expect to have saved approximately 100K when some stock compensation vests that has appreciated very nicely. I can expect to save a minimum of 25K a year easily in following years, which could be more depending on how my company stock appreciates andor my career develops.I contribute 4.5 of my salary to my 401k to max-out my companys employee matching scheme. My rent is 3,000 a month, which is actually very low for a house in our area. The home I live in would cost at least 1,000,000 to buy.I have 2 teenage kids I will be needing to put through college starting in about 4 years. My wife earns 20,000 a year.My current plan is just to put my upcoming extra income into ultra-safe money market funds. I am wondering if there is any point in trying to buy a home since the Seattle area is so expensive and feels like a bubble. Worse, I would have to pay far more of a monthly expense to cover mortgage and taxes to live in an equivalent home. I am not too fond of the idea of buying an affordable house so far away from my work that my commute becomes a nightmare.Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I should best restart my financial life?Frankly, I feel kind of hopeless. Asset prices seem to be like a bubble everywhere I look and it seems as if even someone with a high income as myself is priced out of the market. It is hard to imagine how someone with a low income could even make ends meet in a high expense city like Seattle.Assistant: I would say forget about putting your kids through college, especially in the situation you are in. I dont see why every parent feels they are required to pay for their childrens college. I paid for every dollar of mine even though my parents had the means to do so. I think it taught me a lot about money and the real world.Human: Unfortunately, the education system is geared towards making parents pay. The tuition kids are asked to pay is pro-rated based on what the schools think the parents can afford. Thus, my kids will get almost no financial aid and be asked to pay far more than other kids whos parents earn less. I feel like I should try and help somehow to make the difference for my kids.  <response>: This may be true, but the reason why thats being recommended is because you can take a loan for college, you cant take a loan for retirement. The reality is these are your choices:Pay for college for kids AND plan to work till you die depends on your health OR be a bigger financial burden on your kids OR be really really poor. ORDont pay for college for Kids AND retire living frugally.You may not realize this yet because your current savings rate is low, and with your current income still coming in everything is going ok. 180k is not really high for a high cost of living area, my guess is you think it is because you havent been saving nearly as much as you should be. Only emphasizing this because based on your comment about needing to pay for college, I think you dont see your current situation for what it is. Reality is your way way behind on retirement, I think you need to look at long term what are your plans. Do you want to ever retire? What do you expect your living expense to be when you retire factoring in healthcare, rent, food, etc? Do you have to live in Seattle? Typical safe withdrawal rate is about 4 of your retirement savings, so if you have 1M in savings your looking at being able to withdraw 40k a year in order to retire off of that. If you are using safe money market accounts as your primary investment vehicle I doubt that 4 would be considered safe for you. Also your current savings rate doesnt appear that you would have 1M at retirement.Id recommend you consider putting your money in index funds, and bond funds OR simply a Target date retirement fund. Max out tax advantaged accounts IRA and 401k contributions and simply save as much money as you can by evaluating your current budget and minimizing expenses. Consider downgrading your current rental house.Buying a house is out of the question if you ever want to retire. 