Hi everyone I'm Laura Adams. Welcome back to another weekly edition of the

Money Girl Podcast. My mission is to give you all the information, tools, resources, and inspiration to live rich and love the journey.

I've got a great show for you today about how to pick investments for your retirement account.

Many people get really excited about saving for retirement

and then they open up an IRA or a 401k at work

and then freeze up like a deer in headlights when they actually have to

pick their specific investments.

I got this question from Brianna who asks, I'm interested in enrolling in the 401k at work, but am very confused about the different types

of available funds.

How do I know what's right for me?

And then I got this question from Mina, who says,

I'm a big fan of your podcast and decided to take your advice and open a Roth IRA.

But now, I'm not sure how to invest, so I take as little risk as possible. What's the next step for a

beginning investor? Thank you so much for these great questions. In this show

I'm going to tell you exactly how to invest your money in your retirement

account so you feel comfortable and can also reach your financial goals.

First of all, I want to say that I'm glad Brianna and Mina are being thoughtful about this because the retirement

investments you choose are very important. They determine the rate at which your account

can grow, the amount that you're likely to accumulate for retirement, and how much income you'll be able to withdraw in the future.

Your investment options are always going to depend on your retirement plan provider at work or the company where you opened up your

traditional or Roth IRA. If your company offers an automatic enrollment in a 401k or

403b, there's typically a default investment that's pre-selected for you.

...