Invest or save for a down payment?
Hi all! I am looking for some guidance on how i should approach my financial goals in the next year. I am currently in grad school and receive a yearly stipend of $50k. I am entering my last 1.5years and I am wondering what to do with my savings for these coming months. If everything goes well job-search wise, I should make at least 100k/year based on the industry I’d going into. Here is a bit about my financial situation:
I was able to max out my Roth for 2023 and 2024, and will also be maxing it out this year. Those are all invested in Fidelity index funds. I currently have ~10k invested in a brokerage account, also index funds. I have $32k in a savings account of which $24k is my emergency fund. I can only save ~10k of my income this year, 7k of which will go towards my Roth ITA. My sibling and I recently got a generous gift from our parents of $20k each and I am wondering what to do with that cash. So i would have about $31k in cash to either save up for a house or invest in a brokerage, or both.
My long term goals are to have a nice cushion by the time I am 50 (just turned 25) and buy a house in the next five years. I have no debt.
How should I go about splitting my money between a down payment and my brokerage account? Should I put everything in a savings account for the house? Or just wait until I start making more money to save for the house? Should I put it all towards my brokerage account until I graduate? Or do some combination of both? If so, how should the split be? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!