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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Here's the skinny:

--Save 15-20% of your gross income to retirement into low-cost and long-term investments
--Make a plan to save for college at whatever level you are comfortable with and stick to it
--Have an annual budget with broad strokes of categories like fixed costs (food, mortgage, healthcare, auto, debt payments) and discretionary costs (vacations, eating out, pets)

If you can get that in place, then you can look at fancier things like:

--[b]Optimizing tax-advantaged savings strategies[/b]
--In-depth retirement planning
--Budget analysis according to life priorities

I promise you that financial advisors are not worth much until you do the above basics. Then once you do them, you are well-positioned to manage your money yourself.[/quote]

Not OP, but can you expand on the bolded?  We are at that point and a little struck by how much we are paying in taxes and think there must be something we are missing...[/quote]

Not actually that much you can do if all your income is W2. Use the Bogleheads wiki to identify the best investments to hold in taxable versus tax advantaged accounts.

Make sure you’re maxing out tax advantaged 401ks, judiciously contribute to Roths if your tax bracket is currently lower than it would be in retirement, take advantage of mega-backdoor Roths if possible.

Keep an eye on projected retirement income and plan for potential rollovers. Watch out for pitfalls like IRMAA surcharges or earnings reducing social security payments. Check out the calculator at opensocialsecurity to get an idea of when you might be claiming. [/quote]

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