<prompt> Human: Im fairly new to the game of personal finance, so excuse me if Im embarrassing myself. I opened a Roth IRA through Fidelity where my 401k is, in January and contributed 5,000 to the 2012 year, then another 500 in February to the 2013 year. My total is now at 5,500.09. As in, since January, I have earned 0.09.In February, I opened an Ally savings account with an interest rate of 0.85-0.90 and contributed 7,000. Ive earned 10.82 in interest. I try not to look at the Roth IRA more than once a month, but Im kind of confused. I know its supposed to be a more long-term investment, but how and when will I see it grow? In four months, its made 9 cents, whereas in three months, my savings account with only 1500 more has made almost 11 dollars. It makes me hesitant to contribute to the IRA rather than my savings account.Edit: I am realizing I made a horrible mistake and Roth IRAs are way, way more complicated than I realized or was prepared for.Assistant: You have to actually invest the money thats sitting in your IRA. An IRA isnt an investment, its just a type of account. To keep it simple, the IRA is the holder for the money, but within the IRA you have to choose what to do with the money - e.g. buy index funds, buy individual stocks, etc. Its kinda like if you opened an account with eTrade, deposited 5,500, but then never bought any stocks. Your moneys just sitting there not invested in anything, thats why its not earning anything more technically, its probably all currently invested in a money market fund which is paying a very tiny amount of interestdividend, which is why youve earned nine cents. Human: That makes sense. It also sounds a bit more complicated than I bargained for and now I wonder if I should withdraw it all and just stick with my savings account... How would I know what to buyinvest in?Assistant: Do not withdraw from your Roth IRA; you will pay a prepayment penalty 10. because its a dumb thing to do.Human: I regret opening this. Can I just move all the money in the Roth IRA thats sitting there doing nothing to my 401k and see it grow like the money in my 401k already does?Assistant: No, because a Roth is after tax. And you wouldnt want to anyway as you have less control of a 401k.IRAs and 401ks function almost exactly the same way; a 401k is basically a company sponsored IRA. If you understand how your 401k works then you should understand how an IRA works.Human: I would prefer something over which I have less control, because I obviously have no idea what Im doing. I dont understand how my 401k works, I just know that there is money there and some of it came from my paycheck.Assistant: You should not be investing in anything you dont understand. If you have no idea what youre doing then stop investing any more in anything until you can take an hour to educate yourself.Human: Exactly. So how do I get all the money back and into my savings account, which I do understand? I feel like I got scammed by my own naivety right now and I need to hit undo.  <response>: Dont withdraw the money from your Roth IRA. Dont stop contributing to your 401k plan at work.You could pull the money out of your Roth IRA and put it into your savings account, but you cant put it back into a Roth IRA later. If you withdraw the money now, instead of just learning how to invest it, you will almost certainly regret it in the future.DO learn about how the investing world works, and learn how to choose appropriate investments for your risk tolerance. I highly recommend starting with the Long-Term Investing Start-Up Kit link in the sidebar. 