Opening Roth: Which Firm?

[BrightEyes]

I am 23 and looking forward to opening my Roth IRA. I have a general understanding of how they work and some financial investment/savings background from school and individual research.

My intention is to select the best firm to work with for the remainder of my lifetime.

*I would appreciate any advice/information on the firms available. Anything to narrow the broad array of choices I have.

*I also intend to meet with my top choices-5 or so-before choosing so any necessary questions to ask during these meetings.

[Broken Arrow]

Welcome, BrightEyes. Some questions first....

How much do you have starting off right now?

How much do you plan on contributing each year?

How many times per year do you plan to contribute?

How much manual control would you like?

[jIM_Ohio]

T Rowe Price
Vanguard
Fidelity

My Roths, Rollovers (and my wife's Roth and rollovers) are with T Rowe.

100% no load
low fees ($10/account under $5000).
Most expense ratios are low (less than .9%, most of mine are less than .8%).

I have 100k+ invested at T Rowe Price.

[noppenbd]

I like Vanguard (I have both my wife's and my Roth IRAs there). Similar to T Rowe, their funds are no load, fees can be zero if you sign up for e-delivery, and expense ratios are very low. The minimums are higher than T Rowe.

However, with both of these you won't get much in the way of investment guidance (they are low cost, self-serve). If you are comfortable picking funds and managing your asset allocation yourself you should be fine doing this. In the long run you will be a lot better off if you understand the funds you are picking rather than having someone choose the investments for you.

I always recommend choosing index funds since they have the lowest expenses possible and you do not have to worry about chasing performance. For instance at Vanguard you could choose VTSMX (total stock market index), VTRIX (international value) and VISVX (small cap value) and be set for a long time, just rebalancing once a year.

[disneysteve]

T Rowe Price
Vanguard
Fidelity

I also intend to meet with my top choices-5 or so-before choosing so any necessary questions to ask during these meetings.

I agree with Jim. Any of those 3 would be excellent choices.

I'm not sure what you mean about meeting with them, though. You don't need to meet with anyone (not even sure you can) to open a Roth. You can do it all online. They make the process very easy. Of course, if you have any questions, you can call customer service, but it isn't generally necessary.

[FrugalIII]

I've been with T.Rowe Price for years and am very satisfied with their products and service.

[MonkeyMama]

It depends how much you have to start with.

Vanguard has one fund (STAR) with a $1k minimum. Which is a good way to start until you accumulate $3k to buy other funds.

Fidelity's minimums are $2500?

T Rowe you can open an account with $0 if you commit to regularly contribute $50.

I use all 3. I am loving T Rowe right now, for the low minimums though. Since we tend to trickle in small amounts monthly rather than contribute lump sums. Their Retirement funds also have pretty low expenses though they are made up of more expensive managed funds. So I find those to be a good deal.

All of my dh's stuff is invested in Vanguard, mostly index funds. I keep it simple for him since he doesn't want a complicated investment strategy. Vanguard's funds also have the lowest fees. For that I give them A+. They don't even charge any maintenance fees if you take electronic statements.

I have Fidelity from when I had a 401k. I just have some awesome funds over there, so I keep it.