Does anyone have any experience investing with Edward Jones? I setup a roth ira and basic stock account over the summer. I haven't put much money in since I am trying to pay off some debt first (see my thread about my crappy mbna credit card :) ) and I am starting to feel like maybe I made a mistake. For some reason it just seems like a used car dealer pushing things on me hehe. Maybe thats why I have been a bit hesitant to put any more money in. The thing is I know very little about investing and thought this might be a good way to go. I guess I am looking for experiences as well as advice on a direction to take hehe.

Thanks

Any individual investment house like Edward Jones is going to be like a used car salesman. You really don't have much choice.

A Roth is a great vehicle and it's definitely a good idea to get started on one as soon as you possibly can. The earlier you start saving, the better you do for your retirement. My advice would be to put as much as possible into the Roth each year ($3,000 IIRC) and worry about the CC as secondary if that's possible. I say this because you're better to have that money in the Roth earning compound interest unless your CC bill is insane.

ZV

My CC Bill isnt that bad. Under 3 grand now and it will soon be on a 0% apr card for a year. I just figured it was dumb to invest when you have a cc bill. My logic might be a bit flawed. :)

My CC Bill isnt that bad. Under 3 grand now and it will soon be on a 0% apr card for a year. I just figured it was dumb to invest when you have a cc bill. My logic might be a bit flawed. :)
Even if my cc had 0% I'd pay off the entire balance first before investing.

Even if my cc had 0% I'd pay off the entire balance first before investing.

Ditto. Credit card companies are nasty little things.

Even if my cc had 0% I'd pay off the entire balance first before investing.
The way I look at it, the money is going to be in the investment far longer than the debt will be on your CC. Remember that the money you put into a Roth will be there until you retire, and that the interest you're giving up is interest on the _last_ year the money is in the IRA, not the interest on the first year it's in the IRA.

For example, let's take two scenarios, one where you put the money into the IRA now, and one where you wait a year. We'll assume that you'll pull the money out in 25 years from now. So in one scenario, you have the money in the IRA for 25 years, in the other, only 24 years. We'll assume a 3,000 investment and an 10% return from the investment (this is less than the historical average return of 11%).

If you put the $3,000 in this year, you will have $36,547.48 when you take the money out.

If you put the $3,000 in next year, you will have $33,069.53 when you take the money out.

By waiting one year to put the money into the IRA you are losing almost $3,500 in future value. I doubt you'll take that kind of a hit from taking a little bit longer to pay off the CC.

The above calculations assume continuous compounding.

Not only that, but if you wait to invest until after you pay off your credit card, you might find that your 5 years down the road and having started saving for retirement yet...