New Vanguard account, what type?

[noisyninja]

So I'm looking to start a new Vanguard account, and I'm puzzled on what type of account to open. At this point I'm learning, and I'm planning to spend another year working my job (to bag a few last bonuses), so my initial investment will be small for the first few months. Thinking of throwing a few grand in just to experiment, get the hang of it, watch how it begins to grow, etc. After a few months, once I feel like I've got a grip on how everything works, I want to transfer in more.

I have a big cash reserve, around $800,000 (I'm leaving another roughly $500k loose for now to buy a house for my family and to pick up a couple of rentals, before anyone suggests I get into rentals :D). I'm trying to figure out the best way to get this invested. Based on my initial readings it looks like there are IRA contribution limits that I would exceed if I attempted to transfer all of that into an investment account in a single year. But I obviously don't want to leave it all sitting in a savings account (as it is currently) and slowly transferring it in bit by bit, that would take forever and the money isn't growing.

So... am I misreading how IRA works? Do I need a normal brokerage account? A combination of both? Something else I don't know about yet?

I'm very new to this and still finding my legs, so any help is appreciated. Feel free to hit me over the head and say "hey dummy, go read these articles." I'm not looking for free answers just failing to find the answers myself so far, as nothing I've read has talked about how to move such a large sum into investment on short notice. Thanks!

[noisyninja]

I should add that my current annual salary exceeds the Roth IRA limit of $191k for married filing jointly, and definitely exceeds the deduction limit for traditional IRA. So I'm thinking IRA accounts may be useless for my purposes. Am I correct in that belief?

[waltworks]

Just invest in a taxable account, at whatever asset allocation you prefer.

-W

[wtjbatman]

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

Of course that's only $5500 a year, so you will still need to open up a taxable account. Open up one at Vanguard and you're set. You probably want to invest in something simple like a three fund portfolio.

Really, the Bogleheads Wiki is a great place to get started. Their forums is also a great place for questions, particularly from high-income earners like you.

[noisyninja]

So a normal taxable account with Vanguard, that would just be their General Savings - Individual or Joint accounts, right?

Thanks for the Bogleheads wiki link, will dig around there.

[waltworks]

Just go to the Vanguard website and it'll walk you through signing up/verifying bank accounts/etc. Then you can pick any funds/investments you want to buy into, and buy them. That simple. It's all handled through one portal so you can do all sorts of different investments through Vanguard without setting up separate "accounts".

You can also call them and you'll get a nice human being pretty fast who can talk you through any problems you run into.

-W

[noisyninja]

Excellent, thank you all for the help!