This is short and sweet: max out your yearly Roth IRA contributions (if you qualify, AKA aren’t making too much money).
The reason for this is simple: you can withdraw your Roth IRA contributions at any time, before retirement, without penality. What you cannot withdraw without penalty is interest and gains on those contributions. But theoretically, if you contributed 6k, it doubled in a month, and then you withdrew 6k, you would pay no penalty.
This is because you already paid taxes on those—hence why I’m saying this for Roth only.
I’m all about asymmetric risk potential, and this is as clear-cut as it cuts. This is absolutely a no-brainer if your Roth has less than $10k in it, since you can withdraw 10k penalty-free (even gains) specifically for a first-time homebuyer down payment, with some caveats.*
So if you haven’t yet contributed to your 2022 Roth, do it now. You can always withdraw it later.
*haven’t bought a house in the last two years (lol), the cash you’re withdrawing has been in the account at least 5 years, and it can be for you, a spouse, grandchild, or ancestor
