So you’re enrolled in your company based retirement plan, if available, and you have established a Roth IRA. Great! There is only one brick left to lay in your financial foundation, and that is a non-retirement investment account.

“But I’ve already set up a checking account, a savings account, a 401(k), and a Roth IRA! What do I need another account for?” you may wonder. Well, let’s review the accounts that you have established to date:

• Your checking account holds just enough to cover your expenses for the next month, and allows you to deposit, withdraw, and transfer funds to other accounts.
• Your savings account holds money that you’ll be spending in the next few months, as well as your emergency savings.
• You are enrolled in the 401(k) plan primarily to take advantage of the company match,
• And the Roth IRA will fund your retirement nearly 40 years from now, when the government says you are officially old enough to retire.

What about retiring before you reach 40, or the boat you wanted to buy in a few years, that tour around Europe you planned to take, or anything else you had dreamed about between now and then? Your non-retirement investment accounts will serve to fund those goals and dreams. Remember the quick [1] goal sheet that I had you write up? Go find that sheet and review it - or write a new one if you haven’t yet. Take some time now and really determine your most important financial goals - aside from retirement and emergency savings.

For example, imagine that your goals are in fact retiring at age 40, buying a boat, and traveling around Europe. Your goal sheet may look like this:

Goal	Timeframe
Travel Europe	2 years
Buy a boat	6 years
Retire at age 40	16 years

As you will be saving to reach several goals spread over a number of years, you will need multiple investing strategies to reach each goal. You will want to invest more conservatively (cash and bonds) for goals coming up in the next year or two, moderately (including stocks and/or mutual funds) for goals 3-5 years out, and aggressively for goals in the more distant future.

You could open separate individual accounts for each goal, but transaction fees and/or minimum deposits will make that approach difficult. Janus, for example, requires a minimum deposit of $500 to open a Roth IRA, but requires $2500 to open a non-retirement investment account. Instead, I recommend that you open a single non-retirement investment account with an online discount brokerage that charges relatively low fees per transaction, like [2] Scottrade or [3] Sharebuilder.

Scottrade has a relatively low minimum deposit ($500) to open an account, and allows real-time buy and sell transactions for $7 each. Sharebuilder has no minimum deposit to open an account, charges $4 for automatic investments that take place on Tuesdays, $15.95 for real-time trades, and $16.95 for sales. Personally, I think that Sharebuilder is the better deal, if you make investments monthly or quarterly (to reduce the impact of transaction fees) and hold them for while without selling. And you can [4] earn $75 by opening a Sharebuilder account.

That’s it! You have successfully laid a foundation for your financial future. Congratulations! You are already far ahead of many folks our age. For now, though, all you have done is laid the foundation, and there are a few more steps to take before settling in to your new financial house.

In the next few posts, we will explore step two of [5] The Plan: start saving to reach your goals!

Action Items:

• Review your goals.
• Open a non-retirement investment account.

Disclosures: I invest personally with Sharebuilder and receive $20 for Sharebuilder signups through this site, excluding those made through Ebates. I do not receive any form of compensation from Scottrade or Janus.