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!