Generally speaking, it's better to pay off your debts first, since their interest rates are usually higher than the return on any investment you could make.

Re: risk taking: don't forget, big risk == potential big loss. To figure out your risk aversion, don't ask yourself how much you're willing to profit; ask yourself how much you're willing to lose.

Re: expecting to make more in the next 40 years: Young people have a tendency to overestimate how much they'll make in the future and underestimate how much they will need (medical bills, for example, generally go up).

Do the math sometime to see how much you'll need to have in your nest egg: retirement means, almost by definition, supporting yourself for 20+ years with no monthly salary.

I guess you haven't read up on compound interest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_interest

The 401k will compound tax free until you take out the money.

Also, I don't think there is any reason to have any debt beyond student loans and a home mortgage. You're throwing away money by paying interest on credit cards.

I think this is a question of personality.

Are you more comfortable playing it safe or do you like to take chances and gamble? If you aren't comfortable gambling/taking chances, save yourself the stress and put the money in something low risk. As you are still fairly young, if you aren't risk adverse, swing for the fences.

I don't want to sound like a financial advisor because I am not. Your financials are different than mine but I hope that the below can allow you to relate so as to choose the best strategy for you.

My approach is a bit more traditional. I take each salary as the static factor (i.e. I will not get a raise in the future). This way if I get more money later on that would be a good surprise, otherwise I have my plan set.

The key factor for you at the moment is to get out of debt - all debt. I sat down and wrote my income. Then from that I subtracted the necessary expenses i.e. rent, utilities, transportation etc. I also subtracted a relatively small amount for food allowing a bare minimum of eating out and socializing. I cut all unecessary expenses and then paid the bare minimum on all of my loans and whatever was left was the money that I could spend on anything. Let's assume for a moment that this amount was $500.

I then opened a savings account and put that $500 there. I did the same thing for the next 3 months until I ended up with $1500. That money served as the immediate emergency fund. The number is arbitrary and I have since increased it to $2000. Your interpretation will depend on your own situation.

Say you had a problem with the car, unexpected expenses etc. - that is the fund that would help you get out of a very unpleasant situation later on. So if you needed say $200 for a car repair you could get it from there but you would replenish that amount as soon as you can. The emergency fund would need to have $1500 at all times. This gives you also a sense of accomplishment and security.

Once I had that done, I started attacking all the credit cards and loans. I started with the first one, the one that had the lowest amount. Once I paid that off, I went to the next one, the next one etc. Once everything was gone, I made sure that whatever I would spend I would be able to pay it off the next month. This way I would never pay any APR and would use my money for myself.

The next step would be to set up a 401K. A Roth IRA would be a nice place to start and you can choose a conservative strategy to minimize your risk. After this is set up, you will need to start setting a long term emergency fund. This would help you in the chance you lose your job and have nothing. Some people set aside 3-6 months of pay to help with any layoff. If this is set up, you will be able to pay your bills for 3-6 months and have a bit of time to find another job.

My point is that you cannot rely on the future since you do not know what will happen. Work with what you have today and you will be better off in the future.

I hope the above helps.