Lost in how to handle retirement money..

[coffeelover]

I spend about an hour day reading about retirement, various accounts. Roth's, standard IRA's and 401k.

I'm still no better off now then I was a year ago when I started researching what to do with this money.

This is where I'm lost though, what do I do with the 401k?
Convert it, leave it. Put it all in a Roth and then pay taxes on that now? (we don't want to pay any money out of pocket currently)
We have another 25 years before we need this money and I want it to grow.

I've been trying to find a calculator that shows the money gained/lost when converting the 3 things compared to each other, Roth IRA, IRA and 401k.

Please dumb it down for me, all the articles I read all say different things and I have no idea what the right choice is.
advice?

[ken]

There may be a slightly better options for your 401K but it is probably fine where it is. You say you have invested an hour of your time per day for the past year and you are not better off. Spend that time earning more money or identifying opportunities to reduce spending. Doing something with your 401K is not the low hanging fruit.

[TomTX]

What expenses are you paying? What are actually invested in? What would your tax rate be if you converted some to a Roth? How much money are we talking about?

[coffeelover]

What expenses are you paying? What are actually invested in? What would your tax rate be if you converted some to a Roth? How much money are we talking about?

The 401k is all over the board, stocks, some bonds, moderate risk at this time and it's made money. Good money the past year. Right about 50k is the balance now.
I believe tax rate would be 15 % federal.
I'm not sure on expenses either. I can't seem to get a straight answer from anyone.

[surfhb]

http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page

The Boglehead wiki pretty much summed up everything you need to know about investing and was probably the most significant moments in my life when I read it

It changed everything for my and how I handled my finances

Read everything....read the books listed too

[TomTX]

Yeah, for comprehensive investing advice - Bogleheads. Just be aware there are a lot of very high income folks there.

For comprehensive frugality and badassity - MMM.

Both of them cover the gamut, but have their strengths.

[GardenFun]

Another all-encompassing easy read is "Personal Finances for Dummies" by Eric Tyson.  Check it out at the library.  It explains all the basic concepts very clearly. 

If you want, you can skip right to the investing chapters, but you get more out of it if you read it completely. 

[coffeelover]

http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page

The Boglehead wiki pretty much summed up everything you need to know about investing and was probably the most significant moments in my life when I read it

It changed everything for my and how I handled my finances

Read everything....read the books listed too

Thank you

[coffeelover]

Another all-encompassing easy read is "Personal Finances for Dummies" by Eric Tyson.  Check it out at the library.  It explains all the basic concepts very clearly. 

If you want, you can skip right to the investing chapters, but you get more out of it if you read it completely.

Lots of stuff to start reading, thanks.