<prompt> Human: Background: My wife and I are both 42, and we started screwing up our finances at a very young age.We had our first child at 17, married at 18, I started working a shit job 18 and did it for 18 years. Filed 1st bankruptcy at 26 stupid car loan and credit cards.My job started paying well 60k-75k by the time we were 25. I ignored opportunities to invest into the companys 401k despite the generous match. I never kept up-to-date on my pension and instead we focused on keeping up with living the American dream. We bought our first home in 2004 thanks to the booming and lenient home loan market, within a year we took out a home line of credit, and within another year we had credit cards with limits of 25k. My wife started community college and was maxing out her student loans every quarter. Its like we didnt learn a thing from our first mistake...Then the crash came.In 2008 my job cut my pay, we had to stop paying CCs, we started negotiating with our home loan bank, and in 2008 I started school while I worked and of course...I maxed out my student loans every quarter to maintain our lifestyle...By the time I graduated with my bachelors 4 years later we were on the verge of losing our home, our CCs were long gone and unpaid...I took a contract buyout at my job for 20k and started looking for work. I finally got a new job in 2013 in education and my wife started working a labor job. We went from making 75k in 2007 to 32k in 2013. Our house was foreclosed in 2014, and we filed our 2nd bankruptcy in 2015...My wife graduated with her bachelors later that year..After bankruptcy we had 120k in student loan debt, 18 years of work pension from previous job 500 a month, tiny state pension from current job, and were earning 55k in 2015...x200B;Now: Our youngest daughter moved out in 2017, it took a little while but my wife and I decided to make some radical changes last year. We moved from our rental home that was costing us 1800 rentutilities, and into a little apartment that costs us 650 a month total. I worked hard for and got a promotion which raised my income to 58k, my wife also got a job as a teacher and now makes 44k. After taxes our take home pay is 6200 a month with total expenses of around 1800. This leaves us a little more than 4k extra a month. We have around 5k saved, we paid off our small credit card amounts with the first set of checks, and have around 133k in debts 120k student loans, 7k car, 3k tax audit, 3k 2017 taxes. We plan on paying the taxes in the next month, and then the car with all debt beside student loans paid off by January. We plan on living cheap and credit free and then tackling our student loans for the next few years. Our goal is that with promotions, lowering expenses, and cost of living raises, we get to 5k after expenses in the next year.x200B;So here we are, finally without kids, more money than weve ever earned, and looking at money in a completely different way. We know we only have 23 earning years to save for our retirement. With this kind of financial freedom we need advice on how to invest, and how we can make our money work for us. We dont know if we want to stay in the apartment, but we also dont want to get into another situation which will remove our current after-expense freedom. What are some tips to get us on the right track for retirement, travel, and living a more positive financial life?  <response>: With this kind of financial freedom we need advice on how to invest, and how we can make our money work for us. What are some tips to get us on the right track for retirement, travel, and living a more positive financial life?rpersonalfinancewikicommontopicsrpersonalfinancewikiinvestingYou need to kill that debt first though, so good that youre thinking on this track already.Also pay particular attention to retirement accounts. With 4k of space per month, you should be maxing out like 40kyear of 401kira. If you keep your heads down for 25 more years, you likely end up with 2m there. With social security, you will probably be fine.IF you keep that lifestyle for 23 years, and stay healthy yay american healthcare :. We know we only have 23 earning years to save for our retirement.You dont have to retire at 65 unless you get forced out from your job. 