I'd say to take into consideration what kind of shape your stock suspension is in right now. If it's all original and worn and has 200k miles on it, I'd say go with the lift. But if it's in good shape, I'd go bumpers. If it were me though, I'd only do the lift if I had wheels and tires in the budget at the same time.

just some advice, look into something other than RC. there has been lots of negative feed back about their lifts.

Tough one but I will go with lift. first.

You put monster bumper on a stock xj and say good bye to your approach angles LOL

Bumpers and recovery first, then possible lunch box locker then lift kit last

No point of having a lifted jeep if you get stuck and can't do anything about it

I have been. The main bad feed back has generated from there long arm kit. The first gen of it about a year and a half + ago didn't have much r & D put into it. They have seemed from what I can tell fixed a lot of the issues. But aside from that I don't do a lot of extreme off roading. But my mind is pretty well made up on a RC lift. Had one on my old Chevy pickup and never had any issues with it. Just hope for the same thing with this one.