<prompt> Human: Ive posted these same instructions in about 5-6 different threads over the past year and half and have had a number of people thank me after looking at their account and slapping their forehead. I felt it would be prudent to just make a post so its easier to find when googling.This seems to be fairly common mistake, but people are opening Vanguard IRAs and then not realizing how to actually allocate the money into an index fund from the settlement fundmoney marketshort term reserves. I made the same mistake myself for a couple months before realizing the error and had to call Vanguard service to get step-by-step instructions. Vanguard is also fairly un-intutive from a UI standpoint so step by step below on how to do that: Log into your account Go to My Accounts Menu Click on Buy Sell Click Buy Vanguard Funds on Wheres the Money Going check the Add another Vanguard Mutual Fund type fund name for Target 2055 type VFFVX in box that appears in the Buy in Dollars box type in however much youve currently given to vanguard and is sitting in Settlement fund or in Short Term Reserves In Wheres the Money coming from? Select My Settlement Fund Click ContinueFin.Edit: Whoah, this got popular. I wonder if Vanguard is going to see a sudden uptick tomorrow in its investment capital...  <response>: Heres a whole step-by-step guide to setting up a Vanguard IRA for people who are visual learners. This helped me tremendously in getting my account set up. The Vanguard platform is so dang hard to navigate for a newbie. 