Funding IRA and Financial Education

Not fully funding my "father sponsored" IRA

When I was 18 my father started a Roth IRA for me and pledged to match whatever I put in till I was 25. During those seven years I managed to put in $0.00 dollars. I must say that I sure do wish for those seven years back! Last year I finally opened up a Roth IRA and have slowly started to put money in so as to begin forming a good habit. I have been trying to pay down debt first, but getting in the habit of contributing to an IRA is very important to me. I am self-employed and as such I sponsor all my own retirement plans.

Educating myself on financial matters

One of the best forms of self improvement comes in the form of education. It can be as simple as heading to the local library, or you can move it up to taking online courses or going to college.

If you don't know where to start reading check out The Simple Dollars book review .
Trent gives great reviews of 52 financial books

If you are looking for online education check out MIT's Open Courseware. It offers 1800 of their courses online for free! No credits are given of course, but it is a valuable resource.

One of the easiest is just surfing the web and starting to try new ideas with small amounts of money such as ING, Prosper, Sharebuilder.

There is a lot of information out there to help you on your financial journey, the sooner you begin learning, the better off you will be in the long run.