New: Traditional IRA and potential $$ to invest where?

[Jenie]

I am 37 F, SE, almost no NW due to student loans that I am attacking as much I can. I am fairly conservative in general.

1) I am new to investing and currently have no investmemts. I have spent lots of time reading about betterment, vanguard, robinhood, etc.. and have spoken to a couple of advisers (not doing a plan).
I have to fund the max in Traditional IRA for tax purposes and AGI benefits. I am familiar with Traditional vs ROTH and it has to be a traditional. I am not sure where to open the account as I would like the lowest possible fees and not sure what to invest in.

2) I am selling my condo which will result in 70+K (max 80K) (not sure about the selling fees) and I don't plan on investing in another RE in the next at least 3 yr or depending on the market, may be willing to buy low, or just rent for a while.
Also unsure where to invest those and in what.

Timing wise I will have to fund the IRA in the next month and the real estate proceeds would most like occur in June/July. It seems like the overall consensus is index funds or?
Thanks so much in advance for all the advice.

[GGNoob]

1) Open an account at Vanguard and invest in a Target Retirement Date Fund. Simple and cheap. Max your 2015 Traditional IRA before mid-April and then your 2016 Traditional IRA anytime after that with the proceeds from the real estate sale.

2) If you might buy within the next 5 years and need this money for that, probably best just to park it in a "high yield" online savings account and even do some short term CDs. There are several savings accounts out there than earn around 1%. It's not much, but better than the 0.10% most people get in their local banks.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Vanguard aims to have low fees, so it's much easier to pick funds there.  If you search, you can find lower cost funds at Schwab and Fidelity, but there's other expensive funds at those brokerage houses as well.  With an account at Vanguard, it's $0 to buy Vanguard funds or ETFs.

If you have a mix of taxable and Traditional IRA accounts, consider pushing your bond allocation into the Traditional IRA.  Eventually you will pay ordinary income tax on the Traditional IRA - but bonds already get taxed at ordinary income tax rates.  Nothing lost.  Stocks, however, when moved into a Traditional IRA lose their long-term capital gain advantage - and the tax benefits applied to stock dividends.

[GrowingTheGreen]

1) Open an account at Vanguard and invest in a Target Retirement Date Fund. Simple and cheap. Max your 2015 Traditional IRA before mid-April and then your 2016 Traditional IRA anytime after that with the proceeds from the real estate sale.

2) If you might buy within the next 5 years and need this money for that, probably best just to park it in a "high yield" online savings account and even do some short term CDs. There are several savings accounts out there than earn around 1%. It's not much, but better than the 0.10% most people get in their local banks.

I was beat to good advice!