Send your first $1,000 to the earliest step you haven’t finished: a starter emergency fund, then any credit card balance, then a Roth IRA holding one broad fund. Collect your full 401(k) match from your paycheck along the way. It’s an instant return, and none of it comes out of the $1,000.
Investing the $1,000 first feels like progress. But with no savings, the next surprise bill goes on a credit card, and you pay card interest to keep the $1,000 invested.
Paying off a card earns a guaranteed return equal to its interest rate. On card accounts that were charged interest, that rate averaged 22.36% in August, according to the Federal Reserve. No investment promises that. For other loans, the interest rate decides whether to pay them off before investing.
Then comes the Roth IRA, a retirement account you fund with money you’ve already paid tax on. You can contribute if you have pay from work and your income is under the IRS limit. Its growth comes out tax-free after age 59½, as long as five years have passed since the first tax year you contributed for. What you put in can come back out anytime without tax or penalty, so a first investment there stays within reach.
To find your step, ask whether your starter emergency fund is full and whether you carry a card balance. Whatever the answer, collect any 401(k) match your employer offers, since it comes out of your paycheck, not the $1,000. A 50% match adds 50 cents to every dollar it covers, so raise your contribution now if you aren’t getting all of it.
Say you already get the match, your fund is $600 short, and you owe $400 on a card. Put $600 into savings, pay off the card, and open the Roth IRA with your next paycheck.
In the Roth IRA, buy one fund. Pick a broad index fund that tracks the whole U.S. stock market, or a target-date fund for the year you plan to retire, a mix of stocks and bonds that shifts toward bonds as that year nears. Skip single stocks, so the $1,000 doesn’t depend on one company.
Moving the money into the account doesn’t invest it. It waits as cash until you place the order, so buy the fund as soon as the money arrives.
To pick a brokerage for your Roth IRA, compare the best places to open an IRA.
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