I wouldn't trust anything other than salary because everything else may not exist from one year to the next.

If you're looking to expand wealth over the long term, then investing in all tax advantaged retirement accounts is important.

I have a fireproof lockbox in my closet with all of that. It's about the size of a medium-sized cooler and weighs 40 pounds or so. If a thief walks by my desktop, laptop, kitchenaid, wallet, wife's purse, two giant TVs, then goes upstairs and passes another laptop, three phones, another tv, and dives behind all of the stuff in the linen closet to grab a giant heavy box that is awkwardly shaped to then run out of the house --- I mean, they've earned it, I guess.

They will have successfully stolen my mortgage documents, two marriage licenses, my mom's will, two birth certificates, two passports, $200 in euros, the title to my car, the loan information for my wife's car, and my wife's student loan payoff information.

That's a lot of effort

What’s the rest of the financial picture look like? Retirement saving, e fund, etc.

If you work as a software developer and you were in the army, do you have a security clearance? If yes, the single best thing you could possibly do for retirement (that isn’t part of the wiki) is keep the clearance and make sure you get a job that requires it.

The prime directive is pretty much what you need.

The only other thing would be that sometimes you just gotta increase your income. 75k in LA is probably going to be financially limiting (I’m guessing) so I would focus on career development/advancement. Everything else can be from the flow chart.

If I did the math right, you're saving like 11-12% of your salary for retirement ($6000 + 3% to 403b). Does the employer contribute to the pension plan whether you contribute or not? You also don't indicate what your future husband is doing. Are you guys saving enough for retirement?

Also, the second math problem looks like you'll have 20k or so for a house downpayment. Is this downpayment, closing costs, moving, etc? If so, how big of a house do you expect to buy?

When the stock was taken private, were you not given compensation for any unvested shares? I'm surprised you now hold equity in a private company.

Also, no, there is no recourse. That's the risk of having some compensation tied to stock price.

You're contributing after tax money to the ESPP so you would only pay capital gains on the money above and beyond your contributions. So, you won't actually make 15% but even at the highest tax brackets, you're only paying 37% of the difference to taxes.

I max my ESPP out and sell it immediately and have been doing that for the past 6 years. It's even better if there is a look back period and the stock has gone up appreciably.

Have you accounted for contributions to 401k?

Yeah, I would probably differentiate on early vs late career.

Quick moves or lateral moves later in a career would be far more detrimental than someone in their 20s.

I wouldn't say it is for every company, but I'm betting they've done a cost/benefit analysis. It allows them to spend less money in the long run by focusing their spending efforts.

The cost to lose employees and replace them with higher paid talent is more cost effective than spending money to retain current talent. Figure with job inertia and just straight up employee psychology, they can keep existing employees marginally happy and deal with the outliers.

Personally, I've seen companies that do it both ways. I had a previous company that tried to get as much talent as possible and just churn through employees that all left once they saw their value. And, you could try to counter offer the valuable ones or just move on and burn through more employees. My current company stresses market adjustments and comp increases to keep current talent as much as possible because they don't want to deal with the time lag needed to bring new people in as replacement.

The second company is way more enjoyable to work for.

As a hiring manager, I would look at stuff that is less than 2 years as questionable. Especially if it is a repeated thing.

Personally, I may not have room to talk as I moved from one job to another to another between 2015 and 2016. But, three jobs in two years is bookend by 6+ years at jobs 1 and 3.

If I see a resume where every single job is less than 18 months, then I start to wonder why someone can't stick it out. And, as you try to advance in your career, it's very hard to be seen as a valuable contributor if you may be looking at the exit before our first budget planning cycle...

The catch there is that it would be a one time attempt at doing that. And, you need to be prepared to take the other job because your current job may just say "ok, bye".

And, even if you DID take the counter offer, you'd be first at the top of the list for flight risk. So, you'd have a spotlight on you if cuts needed to be made.

I would say that people shouldn't automatically default to that thought process though. If you find a company that rewards its employees or values your contributions, don't assume you HAVE to leave. And, as you go further in your career, short term stops will eventually be career limiting.

I've seen the job hops work out but I've also benefited from growing within a company. People should keep their eyes open for a company that values their contributions and rewards it versus purely job hopping as the only path to victory.

Later in a career, you could job hop to get more comp but then you'll cap yourself out at being able to move up to more leadership positions because you don't have the cv to back it up.

You probably need to be saving quite a bit more in the 401k. Remember, post-60 is just as important as 40-60.

You need to look at how much you are spending and figure out a number that will produce that much at like 3% withdrawal.

I would mix traditional and Roth savings (whether that’s both in 401k or you do 401k and Roth IRA).