UPDATE: Thank you all for the posts. I think I''m taking on too much at one time so I will direct my focus to index funds now instead of rental homes (maybe when I'm older I'll get into these more)
In regard to my plan:
...
Should I slowly add my $5,000 to my Roth IRA over this year or just throw 5,000 into it to get things started off, then add increments to it over time as I start working? (starting summer job next week)
My chosen index fund for my Roth IRA is the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund because the returns here are expected to be highest (compared to bonds) which will be most efficient for tax reasons supposedly. (I would like to max this out this year)
This would be 100% stocks, but as I make some more money working, I would like to create a tax-deferred account and put money into the Total US Bond Index Fund to get something started there.
Last of all, I would like to make a taxable account where I will put more money into a Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund and possibly an international one.
What do you all think?
Since you said you have $25K total and want to start with $5K I would just invest it all right now.
I would put it all in your Roth Vanguard Stocks.
Read up on location as mentioned above. I would add Bonds in a tax deferred once you start making a good paycheck. I do not see the need to have anything in taxable until the Roth and tax deferred are maxed.
I'm very new and am finding new things as I go a long here. For starters, I only have the ability to put $5,500 into a single IRA (you can't put $5,500 both into a Roth and a traditional IRA account as I thought). I also learned that I can't create my own 401k and I probably won't have one of these until I get a full-time career going (1-2 years before this happens). I also learned about the minimum investment policies at Vanguard (they would only liquidate my holdings if they fell to $100 or less) and some things about taxes.
Heres what I found off the Boglehead website in regard to taxes which I'm going to go off of: "In general, the international fund should go into a taxable account, the bond fund should go into a tax-advantaged account, and the domestic equity fund should fill in the remaining space."
Another big thing, I found out that I had big CD from 2012 doing nothing so I'm going to take it out and start using it for this.
With all of this said...I can invest up to 10k if I want instead of the original 5k just to get something started.
I don't have the option to have a tax-deffered 401k account. IDK if I should do bonds now... So I was thinking of just using my Roth IRA and a taxable general savings account for now? I could simply max out the Roth IRA with stocks and put the rest into stocks in a taxable general savings account?
Or.... invest enough to max out Roth IRA and save the rest of my money for later? (max out Roth again next year, wait until I can have a 401k etc...)