I think I asked this somewhere else, but curious to get all you money-lovers' opinions here....
What income would be required to accomplish the following goals?
1) Living in TN
2) maxing out tax-advantaged retirement accounts
3) saving for x kids' full college path (including graduate degrees)
I would start with what you think you need to live on after paying for 2 and 3. If you think $50k is enough to have a modest home and live the lifestyle you want to live, then work from that. Number 3 is a big wildcard too. I have no idea how much money you'd have to put away monthly to accomplish that. Personally I wouldn't pay for my kid's grad school or 100% of their undergrad, but that's just me. Let's use $250 a month for illustrative purposes.
$50k living expenses
$19.5k 401k max-out
$6k IRA max out
$3k college savings (assuming one kid)
That's $78.5k after taxes, assuming you're doing a Roth 401k and Roth IRA. So roughly $100k before taxes.
That's going to be tough to save that much money and maybe to make that much depending on what you do and how experienced you are. And honestly instead of blindly maxing out both your 401k and IRA, you should determine at what age to you want retire, how much retirement income you think you'll need, and determine what you need to save to get there. Especially if you're young, it may be far less than you'd think.
For example, I recently starting working with a financial advisor and he gives you "your number" as part of the initial onboarding. I'm 39 with $270k already invested for retirement. To reach my goal of $70k of income in retirement I'd only have to save $2,066 annually to retire at 65, $6,279 at 62, and $14,153 at 58. I was shocked how low these number are. I've been saving $24k+ for the last few years and intend to continue that, so I'm way ahead of where I need to be. I'm personally OK with that because I figure I'll dial back my investing as the kids get older and get more expensive and college kicks in. My ideal goal is to reach financial independence at 58.