<prompt> Human: Hello PF,Im currently paying back student loans and a car loan, and the interest rates on those loans exceed inflation, so Im throwing excess funds at them. After that, I will invest excess income in investment account.I decided to see if I could open an account at Vanguard just so...I would already have an account and be immediately ready to start investing as soon as I had my debt paid off.I made sure there werent any ludicrous fees associated with opening the account, and attempted to. When I registered, I chose Individual, General Savings, and then the Money Market option decide what to invest in later option.The amount that I used to fund the opening of the money market account was 5.00. Vanguard let me open the money market account, and thats that. I have 5.00 sitting in my money market municipal bond account in Vanguard. I have the account number and everything. Ive attempted to verify my banking info, had them deposit a few cents in my bank account, sent Vanguard back the amounts, and now they say that the accounts verified and theyre just making sure everythings ok on their end.Should I have been able to do this??The reason I ask is because I wanted to do the same thing for my Dad. He currently has some amount of money invested with some guy that someone referred him to. Well, we were going through the application process to open a brokerage account, but Vanguard wont let him open a general savings account unless he funds with at least 3,000 for either a money market account, or a specific fund. What gives?Either I should not have been allowed to open an account for less than 3000, or they have different requirements for the applicants age, or, they changed their rules for opening an account within the past week and a half.Whats going on? What should I do? I signed up for the paperlesstotally online deal that makes it so that I dont have to pay the fee to keep the account open. Is Vanguard gonna come after me for 2995 dollars in the next few days?  <response>: Most funds will have a minimum of a couple thousand. Your money isnt in a fund. It is sitting there as cash.I had a brokerage accounts open with Fidelity that has zero balance for years. When I got 2500 in it, I bought into a fund. 