<prompt> Human: Hey rpersonalfinance,I am currently finishing up my last year of high school, and have been told time and time again to start preparing for retirement. My mother and I have already discussed starting an IRA, and having everyone donate to it for my grad party. However, I want to augment this plan.I figure investing in the stock market would be a good option, while more risky than the IRA. My thought process is that after a certain amount going into the IRA, I use the excess beyond the optimal amount to invest in stocks. Currently, the main service I am considering is Acorns, the stock investment app that takes not only deposits, but also helps me save by taking the remaining change out of my account and investing it. However, I have read that to make any real gains beyond the fees, one must invest a minimum of 100. So, I have some questions. 1 What is the optimal amount to start an IRA with? And 2 Any thoughts on my strategy? Are there better options?Thanks for any info you guys can give!High Chancellor Lester  <response>: An IRA isnt an investment, its a tax wrapper. You can invest in stocks inside the IRA. Fidelity is probably the best place to do that. You could invest in all kinds of other things inside the IRA too, like a low-expense-ratio index-based mutual fund.You must have some earned income to invest in an IRA. If you did not work, you cannot put donations into an IRA. You can put up to 5500 of your earned income, if you had that much, into an IRA in 2017, so that is the optimum amount. 