<prompt> Human: But I am interested in starting to save. I have been doing some internet based research on what i should do, but i still have no idea what I am doing. It seems like a roth IRA is the way to go, but some of the sites i visited claim that for someone as young as i 23, a roth may not be the best idea because the interestgrowth of an IRA probably wont even cover inflation by the time I am 70. Some suggested that i just take the 1300 or so bucks i saved up over the past year and invest directly in the market because i am still young enough to absorb the cost of a failure. Just as some background information, I make around 22k a year as a dock worker for a rather large Midwestern United States based hardware retailer Where you always save big money. From what i can tell from the company literature, they dont offer 401k plans that relate to part-time employees. I also basically live paycheck-to-paycheck. If anyone has any light to shine on this confusing subject that may relate better to my situation, id be eternally thankful... eternally...  <response>: It sounds like you are getting some incorrect information.An IRA is an account that has certain tax advantages. It doesnt have interest or growth. Its just a wrapper around your actual investments. Investments that can be made within that IRA wrapper are almost as varied as the investments that can be made outside of that wrapper.You can invest directly in the market just as easily from within an IRA as you can outside an IRA. And with the preferential tax treatment you get within the IRA, you end up with significantly more money going the IRA route.Since you are new, your best bet is to open an IRAProbably Roth, but Traditional is good too account with a company like vanguard and invest all of your retirement money in the appropriate target retirement fund. I do believe they have a minimum starting balance of 1,000 so you might need to save up a bit first.edit: heres uaBogleheads post on IRAs that has a lot of good information. Feel free to post back here if you have more questions. 