<prompt> Human: Its almost 2013 and I was wondering when everyone normally contributes to their Roth IRA accounts. I saw that the limit is being increased to 5,500 and some people do staggered deposits every mothsother weekpay check. I read that its better to do it all at once. Do some people wait for a drop in share price then dump it all in? Just wanted to see if there was a consensus for people who have the money saved up, when do you contribute?  <response>: To be clear about whats better - the comparison of lump sum vs dollar-cost averaging is for a situation where you already have the money sitting around. You dont usually do better doling it out small bits over a period of time instead of dumping it in all at once. The idea is you want all the money invested sooner rather than later so it has that much more time to grow.But, if you dont already have the money available to invest, it would be incorrect to build it up in a savings account until you have the entire amount to invest all at once assuming no transaction fees. Youd be better making monthly contributions throughout 2013 than waiting until the end of the year to invest the entire amount, as this gets more money invested sooner.It would just be even better if you had the entire amount ready to put in immediately on January 1st. 