[Nicole]

Looking for advice/help on Vanguard account
I just opened a Roth IRA from Vanguard because I’m in my early 30s and have absolutely no retirement started so I forced myself to do this.

I have no idea what to do. I thought you just put money in there and it would be invested. Looking at the website, it looks like I have to do the investing manually by buying stocks etc.

Is there an outside/external financial advisor I could pay to help me with this? Vanguard has a robo advisor but you must have 3k in the account to qualify.

I have no clue what I’m doing. It feels really stressful. I feel like I’ve been given a menu in French and told to order something.

I have $500 currently sitting In the account.

Thank you for any tips/help

[Paul]

Put it into an S&P 500 index and forget it.

VOO, SPY, VFIAX, or equivalent.

Make sure the expense ratio is as low as possible. Below let’s say 0.05

[Jessica]

You can just have cash sitting there, or you can invest in something and it will grow overtime. Invest it. VOO is easy

[Bryan]

Read The Simple Path to Wealth, by JL Collins!! It will help you so much.

It’s an easy read and everything you need to know about your question and, frankly, the path to wealth.

You’re still quite young, so you’ll be fine.

[Shayda]

Invest it! Vangaurd has $75 fee for buying a mutual fund which will take a significant chunk out of your investment .

Pick an ETF- VOO and or VTI are good ones – it has no fees with Vanguard.

[Kiristen]

Firstly, congrats for getting started! I know it can be overwhelming, but starting is the first step.

I agree with Paul Beets, look at one or all of those. Find one you like and invest there whenever you can.

Once you feel more comfortable you can venture out more into stocks, but to start the ETF and indexes mentioned are great no hassle growth.

[Bassel]

Don’t pay someone. Markets are at pretty frothy highs right now do go slow. Start by buying markets, not stocks.

Vanguard is a good choice with low fees. They prob have good articles too… and good for you.

The first step is the first step. At 30, time is on your side – your future self will thank you.

[Kyle]

Some great advice here. Just buy a broad index fund like VOO, VTI, or SPY or literally any other fund.

You are too young to worry about allocations of equities vs bonds – you should be 100% in equities.

Remember, an advisor’s job is NOT to make you more money, it is simply to place themselves between you and your money so that they get their cut – which they get regardless of how poorly they manage your money.

[Jen]

These are all really great options! Something to consider- I have a Roth IRA w Vanguard as well – is a Target Retirement Fund.

You pick the date. I’m 36 and have mine in a 2045 target fund date and love seeing it grow.

I only check 1-2 times per year and am pleased after nearly 13-14 years of investing.

There are multiple schools of thought so I understand if you don’t go this way but… wanted to offer it as another option.

Also- look up Nectarine which is a financial service where you pay for the hour to look at your accounts with you and offer advice, help you set things like this up, etc but they aren’t being paid other than by you for the hour so there is no reason to sell you anything love it!

Great job getting started!

[David]

Everyone is saying similar things, so they must be right.

Set-up an automatic transfer each month to move what you can into the Roth IRA.

Vanguard usually places that money into a Federal Money Market Fund (VFMXX) by default.

It’s earning about ~5% interest, so that isn’t terrible. At least it keeps up with inflation.

From there, I would do what other people are suggesting – purchase an ETF like VOO which tracks the S&P500.

Based on what you have shared, individual stocks might be something for you to aspire to do eventually, but you aren’t wrong by sticking with VOO until you built up your knowledge base.

Expect it to go up and down a lot and do not panic sell if there is a pullback in the market.

No one outside of the most advanced hedge fund can time the market with any consistency. Best to make regular contributions over time.

Edit: You will need to log into Vanguard periodically (say monthly) to make purchases of VOO or whatever from your Money Market fund.

This might not be the case if you let them robo manage your money, but it is what I’ve been doing for over a decade now.

Finally, an advisor might help, but they take a huge chunk regardless if you make money or loose money based on their management.

Regarding expense ratios, index tracking funds like VOO have a very low cost to own because they are not doing anything sophisticated which would justify a high fee.

Doing it yourself and investing in VOO will return about 8.2% over a decades-long horizon according to historical data.

[Daryl]

Lots of good advice already so I’ll just say you’re doing great! It’s definitely overwhelming at first but once you start to feel more comfortable you’ll be so glad you got started when you did

[Bryce]

There is a little book called “if you can” it is a pdf that is really good introduction to investing. It should be free if you google it.

But that would be a great start.

I don’t think you need to worry too much about the 1/3 to the classes it mentions but at least start to understand the ideas

[Alicia]

This is exactly what an advisor can do for you. You’ll need one licensed in your state.

They can also help plan for all your goals, not just retirement, and show you how on track you are, and reflect the impact of small modifications help you get there.

[Rosario]

Call their 800 # and ask them to walk you through buying stocks or ETF’s.

I have mine invested in VOO (SP 500) VTI (Total Stock Market), VXUS ( Total International Index Fund), and VXF (Extended Market ETF).

[Melogia]

I got really lost when I was on their website this past spring; I couldn’t figure out what was going on.

I had money and knew where I wanted to invest it thru reading this FB group for months.

I called vanguard and got this REALLy nice person who helped me!

[Jennifer]

You must likely have it in the Federal Money Market account or Settlement Fund.

You can call them and they will walk you through how to out it into a Roth IRA or whichever vehicle you want use and then you have to say if you want VTI, VOO…

[Christine]

Just keep contributing and max it out every year.

You do not need to do anything. It usually sets to VSTAX which is what you want.

You can later on add the bonds part and start adding more to that as needed.

[Author]

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