I opened my individual retirement account — better known as an IRA — at the tender age of 18. There are a lot of things I wish that I’d known, things the banker probably should have told me when she was helping me open the account.
Even after I opened my account, it was difficult to find resources in plain language to help me understand how retirement saving worked. Ten years and many, many hours of reading later, I’m writing the article that I wish had existed when I first started.