Not sure why I’m only considering this now since I’ve been using my savings account for everything. I want to post the 7k max for the year but don’t even know where to start. Is this a good decision based on where the markets at? Should I wait for a dip before I enter and actually buy shares? Does it even matter if I plan on holding this till retirement? Any tips from people more familiar with investing? I’m clueless but want to be smart with my money… if anyone can help me in anyway, thank you in advance.
31m Just signed up for a ROTH IRA and don’t know where to start.
byu/HandfullOfPie ininvesting
Posted by HandfullOfPie
4 Comments
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started
if you plan on holding until retirement, put all 7k into the market now (time in market and lump sum investing generally beats timing the market or dollar cost averaging).
As far as investing into what…. start browsing here, r/ETFs and r/Bogleheads .
You can start simple; everything in VT (100% stocks spread over the world). At 31 you don’t really needs bonds, but if you want to be more conservative go ahead and put in 5 or 10% if you’re scared of market volatility.
You can be aggressive and choose broad sector ETFs that have higher reward for higher risk, such as SCHG (growth), VOO (top 500 largest stocks), QQQM (tech), AVUV (small cap value), and some combination of the above to mimic a full market.
The number one piece of advice is time in the market beats timing the market, it gets mocked because it is said so often but it’s said so often because it’s true. Don’t try to overthink it, the market is at an all time high until the next all time high.
As for investment options general advice for someone getting started is a target date fund. The purpose of these funds is they get more conservative as you get closer to the “target date” (retirement). If you plan on retiring at age 65 you can Google: “[Your Brokerage] 2055 target date fund” and have a fund diversified between US stocks, international, and bonds, as you get closer to 65 it will become less concentrated in higher return potential equities and more concentrated into lower risk bonds.
Open a Fidelity account. They support fractionals for stock and etf. They have decent default money market for cash.
Put sp500 for your max. Then use taxable to buy sp500 on an automatic weekly basis. Whatever you can afford. Only sell when you have something urgent to pay for.
That’s all personal finance is. Learn as you. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Educate yourself on bogleheads. Best of luck!!