Hey y'all, I've been reading MMM for several months now and have been very enthused about it; I now know what to do with money when I eventually get a hold of it. This forum is pretty cool too, so props to you all.
tl;dr - I have $5000, no debt, no expenses, no assets, and I want to start an IRA and begin investing. Should I do Roth or traditional, and is this company's mutual funds (http://greencentury.com/our-funds/) a suitable sustainable replacement for the Vanguard index funds?I'm a 20 year old college student. I have no debt, (almost) no money or assets besides my bike and my car, and very low expenses. I got a full academic ride to college for mechanical engineering, so I will still be debt free when I graduate.
I will be making ~$5000 USD this summer doing a summer research gig at another university (coincidentally, very close to the Colorado residence of MMM...). During the year, I have very few expenses besides the occasional grocery trip (most of my food is included in my scholarship).
I want to start making my money work for me, and from my research (I have NO financial background, and not many in my family do) I should first start an IRA (Roth, traditional?) and put the rest in a low-cost index fund (Vanguard). My issue with the Vanguard funds is that they are heavily invested in the oil, gas, and coal industries (Exxon Mobil is the 3rd largest holding of VFINX). I understand that this is because they buy stocks across the entire market, which obviously includes these companies.
I believe climate change is the most pressing, pertinent issue my generation has to face, and to put it mildly, I am not enthusiastic about positively investing in an industry I have observed to be corrupt and uninterested in the preservation of our climate. In other words, I am aligned with the divestment movement that has been gaining traction as of late (
http://gofossilfree.org/).
I have done a lot of searching, and this company -
http://greencentury.com/our-funds/ - seems to offer the best alternative. It's not completely aligned with my interests, as I don't really mind nuclear and I'm uncertain on GMO's, but mainly it dumps the major hydrocarbon companies. It's not technically an index fund, but a mutual fund with relatively low fees (I think?). They have a "balanced" as well as an "equity" fund, and I can also open an IRA with them.
Does anyone have experience with Green Century, or know of alternatives? How would you distribute my money into an IRA, and what kind (Roth or traditional?), versus the mutual fund? I know it may have slightly lower returns than the VFINX fund, but I'm already pursuing renewables over oil & gas as a career, so I'm already bracing for making less money than virtually all of my classmates in the oil industry (I come from petroleum country).
Sorry for the essay and all the questions, but I really wanted to get some advice before going ahead with this company. Thanks for your time.