<prompt> Human: I have finally paid off my student loans and would like to start investing in index funds for the first time in my life. I hear that trade.com and similar sites charge a 10 transaction fee to purchase a chunk of an index fund. My question is . . . In what increments should I invest as I save? Should I wait until I have 2,000 to invest to purchase an index fund, so that the transaction fee is only 1 assuming I would need 10 to buy and 10 to sell? Or 5,000? Or 1,000? I assume I would invest in a new index fund every time I saved another X amount. Is there a best long-term approach here?  <response>: You dont need to pay 10 per transaction 