<prompt> Human: A family friend referred me to their financial adviser. Hes a nice guy and isnt trying to swindle me or anything, Im just not sure our situation would be appropriate to use his services. He can manage our IRA if we want. Choose the investments, and since we are young hand choose packages that are more aggressive. My dad thinks that paying anyone for what should be a passive long-term investment account is stupid. I get his logic, but Im inexperienced so I wanted to hear from other people who know about finance. We could just get a Vanguard IRA and that could be the end of it. Im not opposed to that. Just exploring all options so we make the best choice. Thanks!  <response>: My dad thinks that paying anyone for what should be a passive long-term investment account is stupid.Your dad is correct, if youre just starting out saving for retirement there is no reason to pay a broker to do anything for you. Get a Vanguard IRA, and for the time being throw everything in the Target Retirement 20XX fund, where 20XX is the closest you can find to the date you want to retire. Then start educating yourself the wiki is a great place to start until you figure out exactly what your goals are and what the best way to achieve them is. Then you can take a more active hand in managing your own money but not too active, theres no reason to deviate from a passive index fund strategy, the only question is how to allocate your money. 