<prompt> Human: My wife and I just got married and both are employed in extremely HCOL i.e. Bay Area. My total comp is about 140k annually pretax. Ive worked full time about 2 yrs. My wifes total comp is similar. She has about 4 yrs of work exp. We have no student debt. But we have an auto debt about 20k. We both put 10 into company Roth 401k but thats about it. They match a little bit not enough. Currently just trying to beef up emergency fund and trying to pay off mortgage unfortunately we got a high mortgage rate, also since were in HCOL area our mortgage is 700k. With the stock market not doing so well, what should we do? Aggressively pay down mortgage or get more index funds? What are somethings we can do to bring extra income? Plan for rental home purchase? Or just keep it simple, pay mortgage, cash flow tuition, buy some simple index funds?  <response>: Max out your 401k contribution meaning you put in 13 and then you get whatever company match on top. Budget. Use tools like mint or ynab. Make sure out going money matches with stuff you care about, not just throwing money at things you dont use or care about. Save up 6 months of expenses. Pay off all non mortgage debt. Save for other financial goals kids, vacation, whatever floats your boat. 