re: Help a young buck become a savvy investor

if Vanguard is your choice, call them, NOT your adviser to find out what to do. The adviser is going to tell you why it's such a bad idea.

Before you do anything, research this a little. You don't know me or other posters from Adam and we could be completely nuts

how to move IRA to Vanguard

(personally, I would move it someone like Fidelity instead of Vanguard directly. They have far more tools, research, info and you can buy a very similar ETF (ITOT) for no commissions. If you are sold on a Vanguard ETF thopugh, you'd have to pay $8/trade, which is a lot on $100 buys.)

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personally, I would move it someone like Fidelity instead of Vanguard directly. They have far more tools, research, info and you can buy a very similar ETF (ITOT) for no commissions

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I have a Schwab account because they seem to have the most commision free trades. Is there a fund or ETF similar to VTSMX through Schwab?

You might want to go with a traditional IRA instead of a Roth. You are going to be making more money eventually I would hope.

"Schwab U.S. Broad Market ETF SCHB is a suitable core holding and offers one of the lowest-cost ways to obtain diversified exposure to the U.S. stock market. This fund attempts to track the Dow Jones U.S. Broad Stock Market Index, a market-cap-weighted composite of the largest 2,500 U.S. stocks. This broad coverage excludes only illiquid and volatile micro-caps. This omission may slightly reduce the fund's diversification benefits and return potential. However, these stocks don't have much influence on even the broadest funds because of their small representation in the total market."

No comm. .04% exp broad market ETF

"Pros
• The low expense ratio makes this the cheapest broad U.S. equity exposure available to individual investors.
• Substantial stakes in mid- and small-cap stocks help provide diversification.
• Giant-cap multinational companies such as Apple and Exxon Mobil help anchor the portfolio, preventing undue risk from smaller-cap names.
Cons
• For investors who are putting large amounts of money to work or who are not Schwab customers, the more liquid Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF may be cheaper after trading costs.
• This fund could lag its large-blend category peers when small-cap stocks fall out of favor.
• The fund uses a representative sampling methodology, which means that it does not actually own every security in the index. While that lowers trading costs, it may result in greater tracking error."

ETA: I should have quoted the pros and cons as they are from Morningstar, not me

At OP - I was where you are about 4 years ago and wondering the same thing. Should I pick my own stocks, experiment, start small? I had lots of questions on what to do and honestly made it more difficult than it needs to be. Just keep it simple. Open a Roth IRA with Vanguard, Fidelity, or some other low cost broker, buy a target fund or total market fund and feed it every month until you max out for the year. I use Vanguard and their minimum is $1000 for one of the target funds. Join your company's 401k as soon as your able and put in at least enough to get the company match (more if you can).

Stock picking sounds cool but in reality it's extremely difficult to beat the market and you're better off buying an index fund.

A lot of people are doing 110-age nowadays but everything you said is good advice to follow

I had a feeling that sounded to good to be true. My company matches at 4.5%, but I can take all of that with me tomorrow if I wanted to.