first step

The first step, Jon, is to buy life insurance. Regardless of which organization you join, I assume you will need insurance unless you are independently wealthy. If you delay buying insurance, you run a small but nonzero risk of something happening to you, or some health problem being discovered, which may make insurance more expensive or even unavailable. This is true no matter how old you are. If you find you have diabetes, or a heart condition, for instance.

Name any beneficiary for the insurance; you can always change it later. And I suggest you go for a high amount, say $500,000 face value, since your premium will not increase that much, especially if you are young. This way you will be able to join any organization at any time during the next 20 or so years.

This is old advice but cannot be repeated too often.

--Charles