<prompt> Human: I have a 401k of which I contribute 10 of my 40,000 salary to. Im 24 and I have 30,000 in student loans. Employer matches 25 up to 100 of the money contributed. Vesting period is 5 every year for 5 years. I have 5k in savings, 7k in my 401k.So thats a brief rundown. I guess my biggest issue whether I should do just Roth or just stocks or a mixture of both. Honestly, I just wanna invest in stuff that I can hold onto for years and years and years. I dont plan on pulling anything out any time soon. Or... should I just up the contributions to my 401k? Im lost in how I should be properly invested for retirement.Assistant: You can do both.You can create a Roth IRA with a stock broker and invest it in the stock market. This is what I do. Theres a huge benefit to doing this and its all in taxes. If you invest 5,500 in stocks and not a Roth, and you sell it within a year you pay capital gains taxes. If you sell it after a year, it comes in as income if you make a gain on it.If you invest 5,500 in the Roth, you can still play the stock market, but you dont get penalized for selling it early, and as long as you hold on to it until you are 65, you dont have to pay taxes on it.So my suggestion is to do both.Human: No shit? I do have a Roth IRA with Chase Bank. Would I have to go through a chase stock broker?  <response>: If you could choose anyone, Vanguard is probably the best choice. Otherwise, for the sake of simplicity, whoever holds your 401K may also offer IRA accounts that you could buy stocks in. Vanguard, Fidelity, and Merrill Lynch do this among others. 