Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open.

Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing
One can generalize on Traditional vs Roth flavors of accounts, I suggest Roth for 15% money and going pretax to avoid 25% tax.  If the student loan is much over 4%, it may make sense to put it right after emergency fund.  For emergency fund priority - I'm assuming EF really requires 2 phases, the $2500 broken transmission/root canal bill, and the lose your job, or need a new roof level bills. I'm in favor of doing what let's you sleep well. I'm also quick to point out that if you owe $2500 at 18%, yet have $2500 in your emergency fund, you're really throwing away $450 in interest each year. There's an ongoing debate of "credit card as emergency fund." No, I don't claim that your cards should be considered an emergency fund, per se, but I would prioritize knocking off the 18% debt as a high priority. Once that crazy interest debt is gone, fund the ER, and find a balance for savings and the next level ER, the 6-9mo of expenses one. One can choose to fund a Roth IRA, but keep the asset out of retirement calculations. It's simply an emergency account returning tax free interest, and if never used, it eventually is retirement money. A Roth permits withdrawal of deposited funds with no tax or penalty, just tracking it each year. This actually rubs some people the wrong way as it sounds like tapping your retirement account for emergencies. For my purpose, it's a tax free emergency fund. Not retirement, unless and until you are saving so much in the 401(k) you need more tax favored retirement money. I wrote an article some time ago, the Roth Emergency Fund which went into a bit more detail.  Last - keep in mind, this is my opinion. I can intelligently argue my case, but at some point, it's up to the individual to do what feels right. Paying 18% debt off a bit slower, say 4 years instead of 3, in favor of funding the matched 401(k), to me, you run the numbers, watch the 401(k) balance grow by 2X your pretax deposits, and see that in year 3, your retirement account is jump-started and far, far more than your remaining 18% cards. Those who feel the opposite and wish to be debt free first are going to do what they want. And the truth is, if this lets you sleep better at night, I'm in favor of it.