I am in my mid twenties and want to get started in investing more. Currently I have about 6000 in student loans. Have a mortgage on my own home and have no other debt. I started a small Roth IRA investment a few years ago, plus have some CD's. My current employer does not have any options for 401K or retirement savings.

Does anyone have any suggestions on where I should start investing my money? Should I pay off my student loans first and then invest? Any suggestions would greatly be helpful. I want to have some liquid funds for short term but my main concern is long term for retirement.
I’ve been looking into dealsjamaica and ameritrade so no info needed on them
Thank you!!

I would weigh your student loan interest rate against the expected rate of return on your investment. If the investment rate is higher than your loan rate then you should invest and vice versa. Be sure not to leave yourself without the ability to pay your loans on time.

what is your current earnings? with that information we can help you better

seems like every passing day brings us one step closer to retirement...Don't waste your time to panic over the things that you cannot change. Rather, spend your time to evaluate and adjust your plans for those areas that you can impact.

Every human should do the retirement planning, early retirement planning, retirement savings, and retirement investments, financial planning for retirement, saving for retirement, retirement income, retirement funds. This is very useful for old age. People today retire before age 65, when they are still active both mentally and physically. Retirement at any age is a time of change and challenge and research has shown that the challenge cannot be met successfully without thought and advance planning.

I think it is real important to plan for your retirement and the sooner the better. Start it while you are young

This is an interesting dilema.

I am usually a firm believer that one should focus on paying off any debts before contributing to savings and/or investing, because on paper, the debt cancels out any incurred savings. But in this case, you are dealing with a specific window of opportunity to fund your IRA.

You only have till 3/15/09 to make your IRA contribution for the '08 tax year.

In this situation, I would say go ahead and fund your IRA to the max for '08 and then concentrate on repaying the loan. The benefit of investing, tax free now, for your retirement, considerably out ways the interest rate you are probably paying on the loan. If you concentrated on the loan and missed the opportunity to invest in your IRA this year, you would miss out on a lot of money in the future.

The $5,000 invested now, with a modest APR of 7%, will be worth 40,095.92 in 30 years.

That's an interesting finding..