In order to pay off student loans first, I have about a year before I can do any serious investing. This is all completely foreign to me, so I'm listening to the Rule #1 podcast, reading Peter Lynch and have another book on Value Investing on the way. But now and again I'll throw $200 into something through Fidelity for the sake of learning.

• 39 years old; no real retirement savings yet (sad, I know) so obviously that's the goal of my future investing.
• After I pay my loans I'll have about $800+ per month to invest.
• Not only will I need to retire, but I have work-provided housing. So once I retire I'll need to rent an apartment/buy a condo.
• No wife/kids, and student loans are my only debt (6.5% interest).
• I'm qualified to retire at about 54 years old. Pension will pay roughly $25k in today's dollars and I'll collect what amounts to social security payments as soon as I retire. I also have a matching 401k that I'm already contributing to totaling about $4,000 per year. Seems silly to retire so soon with no current savings, but apart from paying rent/mortgage, retirement benefits will pay more than my working salary.

Would it behoove me to see a financial advisor, or would they contradict a lot of what I'm currently learning by telling me to just put everything in somebody's mutual fund?

Should I be trading within a Roth IRA and just use that early-withdrawal exception to buy a condo (or whatever) once I'm 54?

Just to let you know where I am in my learning in case you all had other thoughts, I'm just getting into valuing stocks, such as moat and PE Ratio and debt-to-equity and whatnot. I think it would be smartest for me to take a buy-and-hold strategy instead of being really buy/sell active.

Thanks, all!