[the LAST Coffee]

Now that I have $2,000 to put away for my retirement, I am looking for a summarized and helpful tips on how to begin a Roth IRA, since my current employer doesn’t offer any retirement plan for their employees.

My boss just told me to start one at Fidelity, Wells Fargo, Charles Schwab, etc., but what exactly am I looking for when I browse around? Fees? Rate of returns?

Thanks for any feedback in advance!

FAR 84 (AUG '15)
BEC 83 (AUG '15)
AUD 79 (OCT '15)
REG 71, 78! (NOV '15, FEB '16)

[Herd1101]

Any of those brokers would probably be fine. I did mine through Etrade. With that amount of money I would just go with an S&P500 index fund or S&P ETF. There are no ongoing fees on the ETF, just usually like a $9.99 transaction fee when you buy. If you want to contribute small amounts on a regular basis, then you might want to go with an index fund that does not charge a transaction fee.

FAR: 80 Feb-16
AUD: 81 April-16
BEC: 81 June-16
REG: Sept-16

[MrHopeful215]

Mostly fees is the most important. Generally the more fees there are, the more features there are (at least that is what they say). I went with fidelity because they have a credit card with 2% cash back all purchases that deposists the cashback right into my account. If they did not have this card I would probably go with Scottrade and do a lot of research on my own without the need of their tools.

AUD - 82
REG - 78
BEC - 78
FAR - 76

[Jones047]

I would mainly focus on fees. Vanguards Total Stock Market Fund is probably going to be similar to Fidelity's. I use Vanguard and am pretty satisfied, but the Fidelity one with the cash back card feature is interesting too. FYI if you're studying REG (which i see you are) you'll probably already know this, but if you make your deposit before April 15 you can count it towards your 2015 contribution and still have $5,500 to contribute in 2016.

FAR 10/24/15 - 87
BEC 11/30/15 - 88
AUD 01/10/16 - 88
REG 02/27/16 - 77

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