This week on the personal finance edition of Motley Full Money, how to choose the types of

investments you own and where to own them.

I'm Robert ProCamp, and it's the first Saturday of the month, which means it's time for the next segment of our 2026 Financial Planning Challenge.

This is a back-to-basics episode, as my guest Stephanie Marini and I discuss the pros and cons of various types of investments and the accounts in which you can hold them. Because we covered so much ground in this conversation, we're going to skip the news of the week and get right into our discussion.

It's month four of our financial planning challenge, which we're calling a year well planned.

And if you've been following along at home, you've come up with a system to monitor your spending, your net worth, as well as evaluate your portfolio, and how much you should have in and out of the stock market.

This month, we're going to cover the different ways to invest in stocks, bonds, a little bit of cash,

and the account types to consider. Here to join me for this very wide-ranging discussion

is fellow certified financial planner, Stephanie Marini. Welcome back, Stephanie. Thanks so much for having me. All right, so let's start with the stock side of the portfolio. We are the Motley Fool. We love our stocks. And let's go through the pros and cons and the various choices. And the main ones are index funds, actively managed funds, and individual stocks. So first up up index funds, right? And these are just

funds that track an existing index such as the SP 500, NASDAQ 100, but you can find an index

fund that tracks just about any asset class, including international stocks, individual sectors,

industries, even bonds. So Stephanie, why should someone consider index funds?

I think the simplicity of index funds is their greatest benefit.

It is the easiest way for money to be invested in the market without too much research,

too much time spent, and still at a low cost.

So because you get that broad diversification, it could be a one-time purchase that gives you

access to the full index that you've chosen.

And the fees are extremely low.

And we're talking about 0.03.04 percent, especially with some of these big name,

Vanguard Schwab Fidelity funds.

So I really, I think that's their biggest asset.

Yeah, it really is a set it and forget it investment. I mean, when I started investing back in the 90s, one of the first things I've always had SEP 500 index fund, and I haven't really looked at it since then. You can just hold on to it pretty much forever. And the evidence is clear that it's tough to beat a relevant index fund.

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