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[daedalus4096]

I need to talk to a financial advisor about getting my investments doing more for me, because I just can't seem to do it myself. I'm sure my uncle (a professional in the field) would be happy to either help me himself or refer me to someone who can. I don't know what it is about finances, but I just can't grok it. I try to read the details of my

Comments

[rustycoon]

www.investopedia.org is a great site for learning about this stuff. Don't start with your 401(k) shit. Start with something built for people who Know Nothing About This Stuff.

That's where a lot of my present level of knowledge came from.

[maniakes]

For a 401(k), the basic recommendation is to set your contribution as high as you can afford up to the legal maximum ($16,500/year). Definitely set your contribution high enough to get the full employer match (usually 6% of your salary).

If you don't plan on touching the money for decades and you're willing to take a bit of risk, put all the money in index funds (these buy a bit of stock in every company in a stock market index (a long list of companies whose stock prices are used to track movements of the stock market as a whole)). Index funds do better than 80% of actively managed funds, so they're good investments as well as being simple choices.

If you don't want to take much risk and are willing to sacrifice investment returns for stability, split your investments between stock index funds and bond funds. I don't do this, so I have no idea how to pick bond funds.

[suvann]

We've been pretty happy with our investment guy, though we're pretty low maintenance. That reminds me, I need to talk to him about some 401k and budget stuff....