<prompt> Human: Im a 24 yo male making about 50k pretax with 10k in my 401k and saving 6 percent a year with little debt. My question is, how can I most efficiently save for the quickly approaching financial hurdles such as having a child, buying a house, etc while also putting larger and larger sums into my retirement account? I have read tons about how to wisely save for retirement but not enough about how to get through lifes big planned expenses without breaking the bank.How can I balance these goals?Thanks!  <response>: Dear Reddit, how do I manage my life? :-Youre only 24, just starting out. I would do a couple of things: 1. Keep putting money away in the 401k. Make sure you have some good investments within the 401k2. Pay off debts. You say you have little debt, which I guess is better than lots of debt, but in the end, you want all debt gone, except perhaps having a bit of revolving credit card debt where you pay the credit card bill off in full before the due date, every month. And except a mortgage at some point3. Start saving. Create a small emergency fund and keep that topped up through the years. I would also create a different fund for general savings, for expenses you expect to be doing within the next couple of years.4. Do your best at work, probably leading to promotion and career advancement, leading to more income. 5. Think seriously about whether you actually want to be a parent. Its a lot of hard work, it costs a lot of money. Do you want to do it, or is it basically only an assumption that youll do it because everone is doing it?6. Dont forget to enjoy life once in a while :- 