<prompt> Human: Like the title says, my husband and I are what you might call late starters. He is 41 years old, and currently working full time and going to school part time, working toward a bachelors in IT. Two years ago, he was hired as an IT analyst by the state that we live in, making approx. 60,000.00yr. One of the benefits his job offers that we love is that the state deposits 10 of his income into a 401k, regardless of whether we contribute or not. The downside is that, like I said, hes 41. We had another retirement account years ago, but since he was only qualified for basic construction labor at the time, when the housing market collapsed, he lost his job, and we were forced to use what little we had in retirement just to survive. He decided to go back to school and major in IT, which brought us to where we are today.Because were starting our retirement savings quite late, I feel like were having to get creative. Some of our ideas include: renting out the town-home we currently live in once weve saved enough to purchase a new home hopefully with a mother-in-law that we could also rent out. retiring somewhere like Costa Rica, where the cost of living is considerably less. My husband is Hispanic, and we both speak fluent Spanish, so language and culture wouldnt be an issue. However, we have four kids, and Im guessing that when push comes to shove, well want to be close to them, and whatever grand kids we have by then, so this might not work. Im currently a stay-at-home mom. This is a decision we made together, knowing it would reduce our income, and weve accepted that. However, in a few years, our youngest will start school, giving me an opportunity to get back in the work-force. When that happens, weve talked about putting 100 of my income, however small it might be, into our retirement savings, and continuing to live just off what he makes. Stocks, which leads me to my reason for posting: Weve considered purchasing shares in a number of different companies. The thing is, we cant really afford to buy expensive shares in the more established companies, so I was hoping to get your input on less expensive stocks. We were thinking we could put somewhere between 20-50month into shares from some growing companies that would hopefully grow, but also with the understanding that the risk is higher, and we could just as easily lose. So do any of you know where we could find info. on some cheaper stocks, or perhaps which websites or organizations offer the best analyses on the potential of smaller companies. Basically, what tools are there that would helps us reduce our risk and maximize our return when it comes to less expensive stocks. Also, if you have any other retirement advice for late starters like us, Id love to hear it.edit: noob at reddit formattingAssistant: You have no earthly reason to pick individual equities. Buy shares in no-load mutual funds, preferably index funds. Fees are very low. The mechanism of the fund is the tool you seek that helps you reduce your risk and maximize your return.Human: I had never heard of no-load mutual funds before. I just googled it, and it looks like a good option for us. The reason I was asking about individual stocks is because hubby has a friend who last year purchased shares in a few different newer companies and claims to have made 3000.00 from the shares he purchased. That got my husband excited, so now hes determined to do the same. :S  <response>: Your husbands friend is the rare exception, the rule is that most people lose money on individual equities, particularly over the short term.Would you choose to invest your retirement in lottery tickets because your husband has a friend who won the lottery?Also, google low cost index funds vanguard and low cost index funds schwab. With a 20 year investment horizon, its totally reasonable to go this route, too. 