Feel my Roth!

*whew* They say it's simple, that it can be done in a matter of minutes. Maybe to someone a little more knowledgeable about such things, it can. For me, it took more like two hours to set up my Roth IRA account. But now I have one. Still waiting on the funds transfer (probably won't show up until tomorrow given what time it currently is ;) but after that I can begin the next phase of planning for my retirement: picking some stocks, or a mutual fund, or bonds, or all of the above. And in the long run, those two hours weren't really that bad. The vast majority of it was spent comparing five or six different sites against each other (I ended up going with Ameritrade, but I can post the full list if people are interested). The actual signing up part took maybe 15 minutes to half an hour, and the worst snag was that I needed to phone up my dad to get some information because I had to name a beneficiary and don't have a spouse or kids ;) It's a little bit scary, but it's also kind of exhilarating at the same time, to be taking this kind of control over my future. Sure, I might not be able to invest all that much each month, but it will add up over time, and that's one of the biggest factors in this game.

I'm proud of myself ^_^

More on My IRA Experience

I got a comment asking which different online brokerages (not sure if that's exactly the right word, but it's shorter than saying "firms-that-offer-Roth-IRAs" ;) I considered and why I went with the one that I chose, so ( here they are: )

( And here is my reasoning for choosing Ameritrade )