<prompt> Human: I want to become learned in all things related to personal finance. The only things I know are related to compounding interest; just high school level Ipert stuff. Questions I have are things like: How do I build a checkingsavings account? What should I look for in each? What are stocks and bonds and how do they affect me? What kinds of investments should an average Joe make if he has a bit of extra cash? What are things like IRA, 401k, etc.? What does a broker do and should I have one? What should I be tracking in terms of personal expenses and assets? How do I do that? Whats the deal with credit cards? Should I have them? How do I build a good credit history? And perhaps more importantly, am I posting in the correct subreddit?  <response>: Stocks are riskier than bonds but have historically had better returns. If youre young and are opening a retirement account, youre probably better off going more heavily into stocks. 401ks and IRAs are tax-deffered you dont pay taxes until you take the money out - so if you made 45000 and put 5000 into an IRA, youd pay taxes as if your income was 40000. Roth 401ks and IRAs are not taxed on capital gains 15 of the difference between what you bought it for and sold it for but come from post-tax income. Keep 3-6 months worth of living expenses in savings. 