<prompt> Human: Long time lurker here but I guess here goes. I have been working since I graduated school 3 years ago. Ever since I have graduated my dad has always harped on me to contribute to an IRA as well as 401k. He has worked in finance his entire life and knows all about this sort of stuff but I am an engineer and dont know squat about it. I have asked for help several times but received none whatsoever. I have tried looking at things on investopedia, rpersonalfinance, and the fidelity site but there is no other way of explaining it, I have zero fking clue what any of this stuff means, how it works, or how to invest it. I currently have 16,500 sitting in an IRA account and it has earned me 0.03 in three years. Im getting to the point now where I dont think I should bother putting any more money into the account because it seems pretty useless. I dont understand how to invest my IRA. Not even a clue how to navigate the screens to get to the location you invest. I understand I should have a diversified account 15 bonds, 20 international funds, 65 domestic or due to my lack of knowledge on anything finance I should probably just go for a target retirement fund. If I could get to the screen where I make these contributions I like to think I would be OK but I just have no idea how to invest. Can someone please point me in the direction of help? Will Fidelity help me at all?FWIW Current situation is as follows:Age: 26Free Cash: 7,000401k: 19,000Vehicle loan: 12,000 4 yrs remain 2.2debt: only vehicle loanmonthly payments: 1,000Income: 72,000Total IRA up to date: 16,500Edit: Thank you all, especially rredvillafranco and several others for your help. As it is what I appreciate some of you roasting me for having no clue as to what I am doing, it helped me tremendously. I dont know where I or the rest of the world would be without you. Over the past several nights I have been up late researching the different asset allocations and finally invested my 401k to several places other than the cash account it had defaulted to when I began putting money in. I will be monitoring this closely over the next several weekscoming months and more than likely reassess the allocations after the first of the year.  <response>: You cant turn back time so I dont see the value in kicking yourself or being kicked around by people on personal finance for possibly missing a step. The good news is, you have a nice tidy sum to invest in an IRA and youre still under 30. Youre in the habit of setting aside money. You have an account set up already. This is all great. Even having earned just .03 in the past three years, youre still way ahead of many people.You dont have to be a genius--you just have to move the funds into a real investment account an index fund is a great choice for you, and then keep at it. Theres a happy ending here! 