<prompt> Human: I see in the FAQ that an IRA is up there on the priority list. Where should I get this and what are the interest rates like?Assistant: Honey, there is no interest rate on a Roth IRA. An IRA isnt like a savings account where you put in money and they pay you 0.5 interest on it. An IRA is a special type of investment account where the funds you put into it get some sort of tax benefit but the returns can only be used at retirement. You can hold any type of asset in an IRA - you could have shares of IBM, or an index fund, or gold bars, or, yes, money in a savings account. You can open up an IRA at many different institutions.Human: Got it.So, the FAQ says to put money into an IRA. What Im asking is what is the optimal way to actually go about doing that?Assistant: A search of rpersonalfinance comes up with one person desiring to move their IRA to vanguard. Is vanguard a good choice?Human: Vanguard is fine. Any of the major brokerages should be okay -- e.g. Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity, etc.In general, although banks offer IRAs as well, they dont seem as well suited because banks primary business is not offering brokerage services.Once you open an IRA at a brokerage, you can then invest your money in the assets of your choice.Assistant: Looking at Vanguard - not sure Im reading it right but they say that their IRA has 12.69 interest rate per year?!? Thats a 6 year doubling period?  <response>: IRAs dont have an interest rate. An IRA is just a vehicle. Think of an IRA like an empty box. A box that the government taxes differently than other boxes. You still have to put things in the box or all you have is an empty box. In this case you have to put investments in the box. The return you get from your investments depends entirely on what you choose to invest in. You can invest in mutual funds, ETFs, individual stocks, commodities, cash, etc. The general consensus on this sub is to open a Roth IRA at Vanguard and invest in low cost index funds. But I highly suggest you do some research first to learn what all these terms mean. Dont invest in something just because someone told you to. You need to understand what youre investing in. Read through the FAQ here and the investing startup kit. I think the auto moderator posted the links, or theyre on the sidebar. 