<prompt> Human: OK so after several months of reading this thread and spending time on investopedia I finally have started my journey in investing. I want to make sure that I set myself up for not only retirement but also to have my income work for me especially when I go back to school and only have a part time job. A little insight to my financial situation:Im a trucker for another 26 months length of lease. After I plan on going back to school. Last year I made 72k. This year of freight picks up I might make more.I currently have 19k of student loans that Im attacking at about 250 a week because of the slow down in freight it will pick up hopefully by March. I normally pay 1k a week. I have practically no credit card debt about 100 this week but itll be gone quickly. I opened a CMA with Merrill Edge and planned on opening a Roth IRA with them as Im an independent contractor with no 401K option with my leased company.So my question is this: I know Im supposed to max out my IRA while Im still financially able. But where do I allocate that money? Do I go mutual funds or ETFs? What strategies do you recommend for someone new to all of this?  <response>: Here is my philosophy: If I found investing overwhelming, target retirement funds really arent bad. Instead I just pick some allocation myself using low expense ratio funds that I change every few years. I always include one that just passively tracks the SP500. If I want to have fun, I have some small percentage that I use to throw darts at companies or sectors.When the market changes abruptly and significantly, I dont panic, I just rebalance. If I were one to panic, Id keep a more conservative portfolio.Most important: dont overthink it. Your winning by investing far outweighs whether you pick this fund or that ETF. 