<prompt> Human: Been looking for an investment that I can get started with 1000 and funnel money into monthly or when I have some available,would any of the vanguard accounts fit the bill or is there another type of investment account I should be looking into? This will be excess money that is currently in a savings account and wont be needed for at least 1-3 years. Emergency fund is already stocked.  <response>: An account is not an investment except in terms of banks and bank-like things such as credit unions. An account is a VEHICLE in which you can invest in various types of investments.Of the three major really dirt-cheap fee online brokerages always kicked around here, Vanguard, Fidelity, and Schwab, Fidelity and Schwab now both have lower fees on index funds of various types and index ETFs compared to Vanguard. Especially for investments of less than 10,000 per fund. Schwab is dirt-cheap and also now lowered their per-mutual-fund investment minimums to only 1 on their own index funds, and 100 on nearly all the other thousands of Schwab and non-Schwab funds you can buy there with no commission and no load. Fidelity has a 2500 minimum for almost all funds, whether their own or others in their no-fee NTF network.Vanguard is 3000 or take a hike, buddy. You can diversify into a few different asset classes e.g. Large US stocks, mid-cap US stocks, international stocks, US bonds, international bonds as a starter for just a few hundred per month at Schwab, and do auto-investments of as little as 100 per month per fund, at index fund expense ratios lower than Vanguards. You need at least 7500 to do a basic 3-fund portfolio at Fidelity and then at 2500 each, that may not be the allocation you want. 9000 at Vanguard.ETFs are a different story and the only low-minimum way in to decent diversification at Vanguard. But at all brokers not counting kinda-oddball Motif where no trades are free you cannot buy fractional shares so you cannot purchase exact dollar amounts to make your exact desired allocation. If the share price on an SP500 Index ETF is 250 you cant buy it in other than units of that roughly 250 actually at whatever the market price happens to be on the execution of your particular order.Just buy an index fund is a meaningless concept. Theres no one thing called an index fund - there are literally thousands of index funds and index ETFs on all sorts of things. Thats like saying buy a car - ok, what brand, what size, what type 4-door, 2-door, hatch, mini-truck, sportscar, hybrid, electric. Typical 3-fund portfolio or similar concept is some US stocks, some US bonds, maybe some foreign stocks. Likely not in equal proportions. You can slice and dice a bit deeper for things like mixing short-term and long-term bonds, corporate and government bonds, large-cap and small-cap stocks in both the US and foreign markets, and if your risk-tolerance and age make sense for it, even a seasoning of emerging markets both stock and bond. All of those asset classes have index funds and index ETFs.1-3 years speaks to a conservative to moderate portfolio allocation but not all cash or bonds. At least some stock of the larger cap variety probably. Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, and most other online brokerages have a lot of online tools and guidance for figuring out typical asset allocations. 