Ditto here. 33, make high 70's, just bought a house, have about 15k between savings and 401k.
I have no faith in the 401k having value in 35 years.
Got guns and "preps." Quietly augmenting preps.
I've stopped contributing to the 401k. My employer doesn't match anyways, but I'm more afraid of the government snatching it and turning it into a communal annuity type of resource, meaning I get 10% of it's total value anyways.
I actually bought my house by investing in 3 different stocks about 3 years ago. S&W, Goldman Sachs, and a little startup oil drilling company. S&W and GS did great, the little oil driller is now damned near out of business. But I came out MUCH further ahead with this tactic than I would have in a mutual fund or savings account, and it enabled me to have my down payment for my house 2 years ago.
I'd recommend you NOT trust the communal investment vehicles. Mutual funds, 401k's, etc.
Take ownership for your own investments. Buy stocks you trust and have faith in, directly, via eTrade or some other brokerage. Augment that with gold or silver as you can afford it, but not crazy. I tend to only keep 6000-7500 in the bank. Have at least a couple months worth of REAL food that you ACTUALLY eat in the house. Not the costco "bucket of disaster food" or raw beans and rice. Stuff you actually eat already. Depending on the number of people in the house, that can be worth $1000 or more. And you'll just keep cycling it as you do your maintenance grocery shopping.
The nice thing about the food situation above is it allows you to shift to a "costco" style lifestyle. The per-unit cost of food goes down, freeing up income once you have 2-3 months worth of food stored away.
Own your car, then be done with that kind of debt over your head. Prepare your financial stance to buy vehicles outright after your current one is no longer financed.
Short-term: $7000 or so, 3 months worth of food
Mid-term: Precious metals. Cherry-picked stocks of companies you have enthusiasm for their financial stance, product and morals.
Long-term: Those same stocks, your home, precious metals.
ETA: I bought that one energy stock at $0.50 and it climbed to about $1.25 at its peak, but I left it in there since S&W/GS didn't peak quite then to where they would provide the house down payment. It was only about 10% of my total initial capital and not the main focus, so I figured no big deal. By the time GS/S&W peaked to where I was prepared to buy, the little energy stock tanked down to 0.40. I didn't need it for the house purchase, so I left it alone and haven't even looked at it.
Just looked at it today. The company is damned near defunct. The stock is trading at 0.03, they have a new CEO and are now bustling around for rare earth minerals and lithium, with a partial ownership in only 1 operating hydrocarbon well. I have about 800 shares of them and I figure the $25 to cash out now just ain't worth it. I'll ride it into the ground and accept being pleasantly surprised if this new lithium/rare earth focus actually bears any fruit. Who knows, maybe I'll get wickedstupidrich off of it.
They have a small PhD crew in northern Canada prospecting for lithium core samples right now.
I'm happy, over all. Got my house down payment out of the deal.