<prompt> Human: My friend is a teacher and asked me if she should contribute to her employers 401K or open a Roth IRA account. I told her that generally speaking one would contribute in the 401K up to the matching amount from the employer and then open a Roth IRA as well. She told me here employee has ZERO matching. In this instance it seems like it is the opportunity to have two different retirement accounts; but how much should one allocate to the 401K if there is no match going on? Are there any additional advantages to the 401K over the Roth IRA in that situation? She has no other retirement savings plan to speak of, is in her mid-30s and wants to get on the right track. Im not a financial adviser so I told her Id do some more digging and get her a better formed opinion. Assistant: A lot of it would depend on the fund choices of the 401k as to what she funds first. For the Roth IRA if she opened one with Vanguard shell have access to low-cost index funds. She should find out what funds are available in her 401k - you want funds with low expense ratios and no load fees.Tax bracket is also a consideration. By paying taxes up front, Roth IRAs are advantageous to those in lower tax brackets now if they plan on having more income from retirement distributions than they do now, or if they expect tax rates to rise in the future. 401k contributions are tax-deferred now, which not only lowers your current tax burden but also helps you if you expect to be making less money from retirement distributions when you retire.Human: She is currently earning under 30K and has 1 child, so she is likely in a fairly low tax bracket. If she had more money to work with having both would be ideal, but it looks like here that the Roth is the way to go. Are we of the same mind on this?  <response>: 1. With 30k in earnings, she is going to be in the 15 bracket. It is very unlikely that she will ever be in a lower tax bracket in her lifetime, so a Roth contribution is definitely a better option, especially since you have complete freedom to choose from several brokers Vanguard, Schwab, Fideltiy, etc. and hundreds of types of mutual funds 