I have been doing business with T. Rowe Price for many years. I have my roth and my traditional IRAs with them. I recommend their Index 500 fund and their Capital Appreciation Fund. The Capital fund is a balance fund with 60 per cent stocks and 40 per cent bonds.

And yes, if you sign up to have a minimum of $50.00 per month per fund deducted from your checking account, you’ll be on your way. And no 1,000 dollar openers.

It boggles my mind that you’ve fallen for Nyquil’s marketing. Check out the ingredients:

http://www.vicks.com/1.1_NyQuil.php

You’re paying a fortune for basically tylenol and cough drops dissolved in alcohol and corn syrup.

Instead, save some money by doing it yourself: dissolve a cough drop in some vodka (with a chaser if you like), and then use it to wash down a couple tylenol. Stick the savings in your 529.

Cheers,

bilos

Either way, I can’t seem to afford them.

I’ve been looking at T Rowe Price; from the website it doesn’t seem clear that I can buy into a fund with only $100. I still see “To Open an IRA Account: $1,000.” But I guess I can call them up and ask.

An index fund is a type of mutual fund.

T Rowe Price will allow you to open a Roth IRA and buy into a mutual find with an initial depot of $100 and minimum monthly contributions of $50. Do that until you have $3000 and then buy into the index fund of your choice. When you are just getting started it is most important to save, maximize returns after you have built up some funds.

I just graduated from college and have always read lots of PF books and blogs. Based on advice from you, Ramit Sethi, Suze Orman, and others, I opened a Roth IRA account and planned to buy into an index fund. I chose Schwab because they allow you to fund the account with $100 per month deposits.

Then I found out that for an index fund, you have to have a minimum balance of $3K. So after much bitterness, I decided to go for a mutual fund, though it had been drilled into me that they’re a waste of money.

Then I learned that you need a minimum balance of $1K for a mutual fund.

I don’t have that kind of money. I could save up for 10 months, but I know that the sooner you begin investing, the better. If index funds are not an option for retirement savings, how do I begin? What do I invest in? I assume stocks, but could you advise on how to begin researching and choosing them, if that’s the case?

Conventional PF advice these days is to stick with index funds and forget about it. I haven’t found any advice that suits me in any of the books I’ve read. Please help!

(PS: I’ll also send this question to Ramit and the Suze Orman message boards, but since I do value your opinion so much, I was hoping you could weigh in, too!)