Good on you.

Warren Buffett had some basic advice I heard once, which paraphrased, was something along the lines of:

Save something to invest (pay your future self first, or second if you think God gets paid back first)
Start today
Do it every year

So congrats on understanding the basics, which puts you ahead of almost everyone in broad society.  Also on understanding the value of diversification.


Most knowledgeable folks will probably recommend you start with a Roth IRA. As a young person starting out you will likely find your marginal income tax rate is low.  Later in life you may want to do a tax-deferred plan but today you probably are paying lower rates with lower relative earning power relative to later in your life.  

You can do anything and work with any local financial planner, including many banks.  As a young capable person you will likely find that Vanguard and Fidelity online accounts may also work for you (online self-service).  While the personal IRA max yearly contributions are relatively low ($6K) it’s at least a start compared with the business/self employed options, which have some additional complexities if you have employees or multiple business entities.

I am 37, had one of those dirty J-O-B’s with a 401k type plan, then became self-employed.  My wife and I each contribute the personal yearly max to a Fidelity Roth IRA plus we have some personal money just invested in the stock and money markets, some savings, equity in a house, farmland, equipment, inputs, and residential real estate.  And maybe roughly $10 of Bitcoin I bought her as a joke way back when.

Our general theory on investing for a while has been do the max IRA each year, invest some outside of that, no unsecured debt, no vehicle debt, pay off the house, pay off short-term operating money, pay off intermediate-term operating money, pay forward on real-estate mortgages.  Locked low interest rates on term debt and higher bond returns have us thinking about more interest-bearing investments for the short-term future and arbitraging, for example, a 2.25% house mortgage with excess funds.  According to the typical financial planning advice we are not saving enough cash equivalents as a percentage of our income via tax-preferred strategies (IRA’s) but if you look at principal reductions on real estate and earned net worth increases as a percentage of personal income basis it’s superior to typical financial planning advice.

Good luck!