<prompt> Human: Hello all, Im about to finish up another deployment and I was able to save a nice 21K in cash. Im mid twenties, I have 70K in my TSP, and 18K in my IRA but I did not contribute this year or last year, I have a CD latter worth around 9K, and I have 17K in precious metals. Ill be moving to California for orders in a few months and Im not really interested in buying a house right now as I feel Ill be overpaying quite much, my sister and father both agree who are good with finances as well. The only debt I have is my car payment which is sitting at 15K. Zero credit card debt. Should I hold on to the cash and keep building it for a down payment in the future? Or should I dump 11K into my IRA which has performed extremely well over the three years Ive had it?I appreciate any guidance on this, thank you. Edit: I would just like to thank everyone who guided me on this. I will be looking into all explained options. Assistant: My advice as a fellow servicemember: You dont need a large emergency fund unless your ETS is close. The biggest expenses covered by emergency funds job loss, medical arent a factor for you. So leave a couple grand in the account for vehicle repairs and the like, and make the rest usable elsewhere. Max out your Roth IRA. I would say max out the Roth TSP, but I dont think you can just deposit money in to the fund, it has to come from an eligible account. You have two extremely conservative investments CD and precious metals that arent going to be doing anything for you. Youre in your mid twenties, neither of those should be on your radar. Might I ask what convinced you to get that deep into conservative investments like that? Just curious. Regardless, I would cash both of those out obviously waiting until term for the CD. Next depends on the interest you have on the car. If its a high interest used car, Id probably pay it off. Its middle of the road as far as conservativeaggressive goes if the car has high interest. Otherwise, with the cash newly usable from the emergency fund, the other cash you had available, and the cash from the CD and precious metals, I would take any funds not being used to max out that IRA and throw them all in to a 3-wide index fund portfolio from Vanguard or similar. Pay the car off as normal. Unless youre like 80 certain your orders are going to keep you at your next duty station for over 4 years, I probably wouldnt buy a house at all. I know in the Air Force we get moved around a lot, dont know the situation in the navy.EDIT: some additional questions out of curiosity - how long have you been in? Are you considering making the military a career? Have you read up on the BRS coming out in a few months?Human: Yeah so I was originally getting out but got offered a good set of shore orders for two years, so I took it. TSP can only be contributed to via an allotment from your direct deposit, so no, I cant contribute a lump sum directly to it, but my IRA I definitely can. Honestly the gold and silver was a shits n giggles thing. I had money I felt that was going to burn a hole in my pocket when I was younger so I bought that so I wouldnt spend it on something stupider yet I can still have fun looking at some small wealth Ive accumulated by looking into my safe. Ya know?Its a relatively newer car. 2015. But the APR is only 0.9. So Im not worried about that. Yes I know about the BRS. Im not much of a fan of it since Im practically halfway to my retirement point. My orders will take me till at least 2020, but Im only doing two years there. I currently have about 8.5 years in the navy and I will be getting out after this quick shore tour to go join the army to fly helicopters. Yes I will make it a career if it works out obviously, and Ill do 30 years if given the chance.  <response>: Well, considering the alternative blowing it, precious metals wasnt a bad choice then lol. I would still cash them out, seeing as how youre older and wiser now. At .9 theres no way in hell Id do anything other than the minimum payment. Thats almost a 0 loan. At 8.5 years in the chances of the BRS outperforming the legacy plan are pretty slim. I just make it a point to mention it in case anyone is like 2-3 years in or less. For those people its definitely a better deal.As a side note, I wish to hell and back that the Air Force had WOs. The enlisted force, especially Air Force cyber, has been pushing for WOs for years. They look like theyre finally giving it actual thought though, so perhaps in the next 30 years theyll actually bring them back lol 