vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
You definitely do not need human interaction to open an account at Schwab. You just need to provide a social security number and US drivers license. See http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/investing/accounts_products/accounts/brokerage_account You can do it online or through the mail. They usually have some questions about your level of experience with investing. They are required to ask these questions to ensure that you don't get confused and put your money in inappropriate investments.
Dollar cost averaging can be done in a retirement plan, and can be done for individual stock purchases, as this will increase your returns by reducing your risk, especially if you are buying a particular stock for the first time.   How many time have I purchased a stock, bottom fishing, thinking I was buying at the low, only to find out there was a new low.  Sitting with a thousand shares that are now down $3-$4K.  I have a choice to sell at a loss, hold what I've got or double down.  I usually add more shares if I'm thinking I'll recover, but at that time I'd wished I'd eased into my investment.  That way I would have owned more shares at a smaller cost basis.   Anything can happen in the market, not knowing whether the price will increase or decrease.  In the example above a $3,000 loss is equal to the brokerage cost of about 300 trades, so trading cost should not be a factor.  Now I'm not saying to slowly get into the market and miss the bull, like we're having today with Trump, but get into individual stocks slowly, being fully invested in the market.   Also DCA means you do not buy equal number of shares per period, say monthly, but that you buy with the same amount of money a different number of shares, reducing your total costs.  Let's say you spend $2000 on a stock trading at $10 (200 shares), if the stock rose to $20 you would spend $2000 and buy 100 shares, and if the stock dropped to $5 you would spend $2000 and buy 400 shares, by now having amassed 700 shares for $6,000.  On the other hand and in contrast to DCA had you purchased 200 shares for $2000 at $10/share, then 200 shares for $4000 at $20/share, and finally 200 more shares for $1000 at $5/share, you would have amassed only 600 shares for $7000 investment.
Is there anyway to store money completely safely? I saw today that Norway has a $1 trillion fund, but that's all in investment. If I was to have, say, $1 million could I somehow store that so there was no way it would lose money  (but I assume not make any either)?
If your budget allows for it, max out both plans!  However, in my opinion, you're on the right path: The advantage of also contributing to the Roth 401(k) in this case would be: This second point is the main reason that you should also invest in a 401(k), using that as a retirement savings vehicle alongside your Roth IRA. One caveat is that you should ensure that you'll have sufficient savings so that you won't need to dip into either plan - it'd be a shame to reduce the investment base from which you can grow your savings tax free. Personally, I'd view my contributions in the Roth IRA as an emergency fund to be used only in the direst circumstances.
I could see doing this if the investments were via different environments. The choices in a 401K are limited by the plan, so you might want to put new money into the 401K index fund. At the same time you could have IRA money invested in a similar index. You could even have non-retirement money invested. While you should look at all your investments while evaluating your investment percentages, the 401K (limited options) and the non-retirement account (avoiding taxes) might be harder to move around. Otherwise the only advantage of splitting between funds is avoiding having all your money in a Ponzi scheme.
"Why not do both? The object is to ""squirrel"" away as much money as possible. The 401k has the advantage of being a payroll deduction. The IRA, if you can save the money, gives you more control. When you change jobs, you can ""roll over"" your first 401k into either your IRA or your second job's 401k. Note: There are legal limits on total contributions to IRA and 401ks. I've forgotten what they are, so find out for yourself. There may also be income limits, but ones that don't apply to most 23-year olds, unless they own their own company or work for say, Goldman Sachs."
"I humbly disagree with #2. the use of Roth or pre-tax IRA depends on your circumstance. With no match in the 401(k), I'd start with an IRA. If you have more than $5k to put in, then some 401(k) would be needed.  Edit - to add detail on Roth decision. I was invited to write a guest article ""Roth IRAs and your retirement income"" some time ago. In it, I discuss the large amount of pretax savings it takes to generate the income to put you in a high bracket in retirement. This analysis leads me to believe the risk of paying tax now only to find tHat you are in a lower bracket upon retiring is far greater than the opposite. I think if there were any generalization (I hate rules of thumb, they are utterly pick-apartable) to be made, it's that if you are in the 15% bracket or lower, go Roth. As your income puts you into 25%, go pretax. I believe this would apply to the bulk of investors, 80%+."
The rough rule of thumb is to have two to five years of withdrawals in short term investments like money market funds. But that's more than twenty years off. You have more choices with an IRA. In particular, you can choose your own administrator. But I'd keep the same stock/bond mix and stick to index funds if you're not interested in researching the more complex options. You may want to invest your IRA in a growth fund and your 401k in value funds and bonds. Then balance the stock/bond mix across both. When you invest each year, look at the underrepresented funds and add the most to them. So if bonds had a bad year and didn't keep pace, invest in bonds. They're probably cheap. You don't want to rebalance frequently, but once a year might be a good pace. That's about how often you should invest in an IRA, so that can be a good time. I'll let the others answer on the financial advisor part.
I'd argue that you should be focusing on avoiding taxation and maximizing employer matching funds as your first objective.  Over a longer period, quality of investment options and fees will both drive your account value. A personal IRA account is usually a better value over time -- so contribute as much as possible to your IRA, and rollover 401k accounts whenever you have an opportunity to do so.
As I stated in my comment on @JCotton's answer, the only way you benefit by putting your money in an IRA or other tax-deferred vehicle is if you expect to have a lower tax rate when you withdraw than when you put the money in.  If you look at @JCotton's numbers and remember to pay taxes when you withdraw the money in 30 years, you will see that both situations - paying taxes now or 30 years from now - give you the exact same dollar amount if the tax rates are the same at both points in time.  So if you put money in an IRA, you're betting on the fact that the government will not substantially raise interest rates by then, and/or that you will be in a lower tax bracket. To me, the only valid reasons to invest in an IRA or 401K are the following: However, you should also consider the major downside that the money is locked away and, at best, inconvenient to access when you need it.  At worst, you have to pay taxes and penalties if you ever withdraw that money.  If you are a financially responsible person, I think you're generally better off keeping your money outside of an IRA or 401K, with the exception of making sure to get all of your employer's matching contributions.
I think it comes down to whether you are happy with the investment choices in the 401k.  If you are, there is no reason not to invest there.  Additionally, it doesn't have to be an either-or choice.  You can invest up to the maximum in both accounts. BTW, congratulations on thinking about retirement at your age.  I wish I had been in a position to do that.
"1) Usually, the choice between Traditional vs. Roth is whether you believe that your tax rate will be higher or lower in the future than it is now. Your income is probably in the 25% bracket now. It's hard to say whether that should be considered ""high"" or ""low"". Some people advocate Roth only for 15% bracket; but your income would probably go into higher brackets in the future, so Roth may be preferable from this point of view. Roth IRA also has another advantage that the principal of contributions can be taken out at any time without tax or penalty, so it can serve as an emergency fund just as well as money in taxable accounts. Given that you may not have a lot of money saved up right now, this is useful. 2) In a sense, it's nice to have a mix of Traditional and Roth when you withdraw to hedge against uncertainty in future tax rates and have the option of choosing whichever one is advantageous to withdraw when you need to withdraw. That said, you will likely have many years of access to a 401k and high income in your future working years, in which you can contribute to a Traditional 401k (or if no access to 401k, then Traditional IRA), so a mix will almost certainly happen even if you go all Roth IRA now. 3) I think that depends on you, whether you are a hands-on or hands-off kind of investor."
To expand on mhoran's answer - Once you mention the 401(k), we're compelled to ask (a) what is the match, if any, and (b) what are the expenses within the funds offered.  Depositing to get the full match is going to get you the biggest return on your money. It's common to get a dollar for dollar match on the first 5 or 6% of your income. If the fees are high, you stop at the match, and move to an IRA for the next money you wish to save.  At 22, I'd probably focus on the Roth. If you have access to a Roth 401(k), that's great, the match will be pre tax dollars and you'll get started with a decent tax status mix.  These accounts can form the core of your investing. Most people have little left over once their retirement accounts are fully funded. And yes, reading to understand stocks is great, but also to understand why stock indexing is the best choice for most investors.
You're going to have to guess where your income will fall once you retire.  If it's low enough, then a 401(k) or traditional IRA (where the taxes are deferred until retirement) would be the smarter choice. If your projected income is higher (usually the case for people in their 20s or people with larger amounts invested), then the ROTH makes sense because of the tax free growth.
Both will grow at the same rate. If everything else was equal:fees, investment options, flavor (Roth or deductible); Then I would put the money into the 403B.  Why? putting the money into the 403b directly from your paycheck during the year allows you to have all of the $5,500 available to make an end of the year contribution, or to put the money from your tax return into the IRA. While $4,800 is less than $5,500. it is close enough that If you realized late in the calendar year that you had an extra $1,000 you wanted to contribute to your retirement, there wouldn't be enough room left to contribute.
Rolling a 401(k) to an IRA should be your default best option. Rolling a 401(k) to another 401(k) is rarely the best option, but that does happen.  I've done it once when I started a job at a company that had a great 401(k) with a good selection of low-cost mutual funds. I rolled the 401(k) from one previous job in to this 401(k) to take advantage of it.  In all other cases, I rolled 401(k)s from previous jobs to my Rollover IRA, which gave me the most freedom of investment options. Finally, with 401(k)-to-Roth IRA rollovers, it's important to decouple two concepts so you can analyze it as a sum of two transactions:
The matching funds are free money, so it is a very good idea to take that money off the table.  Look at it as free 100% return: you deposit $1000, your employer matches that $1000, you now have $2000 in your 401(k).  (Obviously, I'm keeping things simple.  Vesting schedules mean that the employer match isn't yours to keep immediately, but rather after some time; usually in chunks.) Beyond the employer match, you need to consider what is available for investment in a 401(k).  Typically, your options are more limited then in an IRA.  The cost of the 401(k) should be considered, as it isn't trivial for most.  (The specifics will of course vary, but in large IRA accounts are cheaper.) So, it's about the opportunity costs.  Up to the employer match, it doesn't matter as much that your investment choices are more limited in a 401(k), because you're getting 100% return just on the matching funds.  Once that is exhausted, you have more opportunity for returns, due to having more options available to you, by going with an account that provides more choices. The overall principle here is that you have to look at the whole picture.  This is similar to the notion that you should pay-down your high interest debt before investing, because from the perspective of investing the interest you're paying represent a loss, or negative return on investment, since money is going out of your accounts.  Specific to your question, you have to consider the various types of investment vehicles available to you.  It is not just about 401(k) and IRA accounts.  You may also consider a straight brokerage account, a savings account, CDs, etc.  The costs and returns that you can typically expect are your guides through the available choices.
"If you're willing to do a little more work and bookkeeping than just putting money into the 401(k) I would recommend the following. I note that you said you chose some funds based on performance since the expense ratios are all high. I would recommend against chasing performance because active funds will almost always falter; honor the old saw:  ""past performance is no guarantee of future returns"". Assuming the cash in your Ally account is an emergency fund, I would use it to pay off your credit card debt to avoid the interest payments. Use free cash flow in the coming months to bring the emergency fund balance back up to an acceptable level. If the Ally account is not an emergency fund, I would make it one! With no debt and an emergency fund for 3-12 months of living expenses (pick your risk tolerance), then you can concentrate on investing. Your 401(k) options are unfortunately pretty poor. With those choices I would invest this way: Once you fill up your choice of IRA, then you have the tougher decision of where to put any extra money you have to invest (if any). A brokerage account gives you the freedom of investment choices and the ability to easily pull out money in the case of a dire emergency. The 401(k) will give you tax benefits, but high fund expenses. The tax benefits are considerable, so if I were at a job where I plan on moving on in a few years, I'd fund the 401(k) up to the max with the knowledge that I'd roll the 401(k) into a rollover IRA in the (relatively) short term. If I saw myself staying at the employer for a long time (5+ years), I'd probably take the taxable account route since those high fund fees will add up over time. One you start building up a solid base, then I might look into having a small allocation in one of my accounts for ""play money"" to pick individual stocks, or start making sector bets."
Roth and 401k are first because with the Roth you have tax free withdrawals (awesome!) and with the 401k you have tax free contributions (awesome!) as well as potential employer matching.  Traditional IRAs would be the final thing I would contribute to after both of those.  And in your case, unless you make around 150k, you aren't maxing your 401k; so I'd do that first.
You have many options, and there is no one-size-fits-all recommendation. You can contribute to your IRA in addition to your 401(k), but because you have that 401(k), it is not tax-deductable. So there is little advantage in putting money in the IRA compared to saving it in a personal investment account, where you keep full control over it. It does, however, open the option to do a backdoor-rollover from that IRA to a Roth IRA, which is a good idea to have; you will not pay any taxes if you do that conversion, if the money in the IRA was not tax deducted (which it isn't as you have the 401(k)). You can also contribute to a Roth IRA directly, if you are under the income limits for that (193k$ for married, I think, not sure for single). If this is the case, you don't need to take the detour through the IRA with the backdoor-rollover. Main advantage for Roth is that gains are tax free. There are many other answers here that give details on where to save if you have more money to save. In a nutshell, In between is 'pay off all high-interest debt', I think right after 1. - if you have any. 'High-Interest' means anything that costs more interest than you can expect when investing.
Without running the numbers, if they are close I prefer a 401K over DB.  With a 401K the money is yours, with a DB you are at the mercy of the employer.  Two things could happen:  You could lose your job or they could just take away or reduce the DB.   In my mind DB is much higher risk than 401K.
If you invest in a 401(k), the shares in that plan are yours for as long as you live, or until you pull them out. So, if the employer is offering any sort of matching and those matched funds remain yours after you leave, then definitely contribute; that's an immediate return on your money. If the employer is NOT matching funds, then usually it is better to contribute to an IRA instead; you get the same income tax benefits from the deduction, without the headaches of going through your company (or the company from 3 jobs ago or whoever bought them) to get to your money. If I were in your position, the most I personally would do after I quit the company (which I'm assuming you'd be doing if you were going back to your country of origin) would be to have the 401k shares rolled over into a traditional IRA; that way I'd have more control over it from outside the country. Just keep the bank holding your IRA apprised of your movements around the world and how they can get ahold of you (it may be wise to grant a limited power of attorney to someone who will be staying in the U.S. if you don't want the bank mailing your statements all around the world), and the money can stay in an American account while you do whatever you have to outside it. As long as you don't take the money out in cash before you're 59 1/2 years old, you don't need to pay taxes or penalties on it. If you were to need it to cover unexpected expenses (perhaps relating to the aforementioned family emergency), then that decision can be made at that time. If you think that's even remotely likely, you may consider a Roth IRA. With a Roth, you pay the income taxes on your contributions, but the money is then yours; you can withdraw anything up to the total amount of your contributions without any additional taxes or penalties, and once you hit 59 and a half the interest also becomes available, also tax- and penalty- free. So if you had to leave the country and take a lot of cash with you, you could get out everything you actually put into a Roth with only minor if any transaction fees, and the interest will still be there compounding.
Since you've already maxed out your 401k and your IRA, if you wanted to invest more-- then it would either be in a brokerage account or a 529 (if you have kids/ intend on going back to school). As to investing versus paying off your loans -- the interest on them are small enough that it will depend on your preference.  If you need the cash flow for investment purposes (ie if you are going to buy an investment property) then I would pay off the car loan first -- otherwise I would invest the money.   Since you've already expressed that you wouldn't be too interested in paying the mortgage off early, I've left that off the table (I would prioritize car loan over mortgage for the cash flow reason)  If you do open a brokerage account -- make sure you are minimizing your taxes by putting the 'right' type of assets in a tax advantaged account.
I'm afraid you're mistaking 401k as an investment vehicle. It's not. It is a vehicle for retirement. Roth 401k/IRA has the benefit of tax free distributions at retirement, and as long as you're in the low tax bracket - it is for your benefit to take advantage of that. However, that is not the money you would be using to start a business or buy a home (except for maybe up to $10K you can withdraw without penalty for first time home buyers, but I wouldn't bother with $10k, if that's what will help you buying a house - maybe you shouldn't be buying at all). In addition, you should make sure you take advantage of the employer 401k match in full. That is free money added to your Traditional 401k retirement savings (taxed at distribution). Once you took the full advantage of the employer's match, and contributed as much as you consider necessary for your retirement above that (there are various retirement calculators on line that can help you in making that determination), everything else will probably go to taxable (regular) savings/investments.
Unless that 401K has very low expense ratios on its funds, you should roll it into an IRA and choose funds with low expense ratios. After rolling it over you should not take the 10% penalty and use it to purchase a home.  Unless you use that home as an income property, it is unlikely to provide you more than a 1% inflation-adjusted rate of return given historical data.  The S&P 500 is about 4% adjusted for inflation.  And that money currently in your 401(k) is for your retirement - your future.  Don't borrow against your future.  Let compound interest do its work on that money. The value of a house is in the rent you aren't paying to live somewhere and there are a lot of costs to consider.  That doesn't mean don't buy.  It just means buy wisely. If you are currently maxing out your 401(k), you may consider cutting back to save for your down payment.  Other than that I wouldn't touch retirement money unless it was a dire financial emergency.
Bad question.  Even people choosing a 401k strategy have to choose risk over reward.  But looking at this simply, if you take a 10 year chart of Gold, you will not find any other stock or commodity that could have been invested in that would have provided you with the same results with as little volatility over this time period.  http://www.kitco.com/LFgif/au3650nys.gif
At the very least you should invest as much as you can that your employer will match, as they are basically giving you free money for saving. After that I would prioritize a Roth IRA as that offers similar tax benefits with more liquidity. Provided you have enough money available in your emergency fund and have plenty for everyday expenses I see no reason not to max out your 401k after that if you can afford it. However, if your emergency fund is lacking, be sure to put some there. Other investments like a 529 may come into play if you have kids you plan on sending to college, but it all depends on your situation.
If you can afford to put money in your 401(k) account, I would say at least you should invest enough to get your employer's matching fund. It's free money, why not get it?