i do have another question:
i saw my employer's 401k have 3 vanguard funds, i have allocated mine into 50% small cap growth index (VSGAX) and 50% growth index fund (VIGSX) - is this a good plan?
lastly, which is better to start with for ROTH IRA - VFINX or VTSAX (saw this from Jimcollins), both have $3k to start which i can be able to at this point
looking forward for your comments! thanks!
whoa, sorry... I dropped this thread after commenting on it.
The short answer is that any of your suggested strategies should work fine, and no one can say with certainty what will yield the highest returns in the future. Chances are they will be very close.
Small cap growth stocks tend to be more volatile, so you have to stomach occasional larger drops compared to larger cap growth or value stocks.
Also, investing you can invest either in VFINX or VTSAX. One has the 500 largest companies in the US. the VFINX gives you a slightly higher dividend, but many of the companies aren't likely to see huge growth because they are already so big. VTSAX gives you all of these, plus all the smaller stocks too. It's about a diverse as you can get owning western companies (many of whom have significant sales in Asia and Africa, like Apple and Coca-cola and Yum!).
Pick what you like and just start saving money. You'll do fine with any of them.