My wife and I each have about $140,000 sitting in our Roth IRAs right now. We started these accounts about nine years ago, and we’ve maxed out our contributions every year since.
I’ve written about personal finance for years, and the Roth is still my favorite account of all the ones I’ve opened. Here’s how we started, how we crossed six figures in value, and why I’d tell almost any younger person to open one today.
We have never picked a single stock
A long time ago, I read a book called “The Little Book of Common Sense Investing” by John Bogle. He founded Vanguard, and people often call him the father of index funds.
What I took from it changed everything. Instead of trying to pick winning stocks and get rich on my own luck, I learned that most people do better with simple index funds.
The truth is, most people are bad at picking stocks (myself included). Research shows the average investor tends to come out ahead by just buying low-cost index funds and earning steady market returns year over year.
So that’s been our entire strategy. And it’s working beautifully. My wife and I both invest in a total stock market index fund, which holds a tiny slice of nearly every public U.S. company.
When the market drops, we do nothing. When it climbs, we do nothing. We just keep contributing on a schedule and let time do the heavy lifting. Most of our balance now is growth, not money we put in.
The flexibility of a Roth is what I love most about it
We own a handful of different investing accounts — a 401(k), taxable brokerage accounts, and some real estate. But the Roth IRA is by far my favorite type of account.
Two things make it special. First, there’s no giant tax bill waiting for us later. Anything we put in grows tax-free, and qualified withdrawals in retirement come out completely tax-free.
Second, I can pull out my original contributions at any time, with no taxes or penalties. Only the growth has to stay put until age 59 1/2.
I don’t anticipate pulling money out early, but it’s just nice knowing not everything is locked up until retirement.
We keep ours at Fidelity and Schwab
I hold my Roth at Fidelity, and my wife holds hers at Charles Schwab. We like both, and we manage our other accounts inside the same portals.
Neither charges a monthly fee, and we pay nothing in transaction costs on the funds we buy. We also don’t pay an advisor, so every dollar of growth stays ours and keeps compounding.
It’s no surprise to me that Fidelity won our Best Stock Broker for ETFs award this year, and Schwab took our Best Stock Broker for IRA Investors award for 2026. Each is an excellent home for a long-term account. If you don’t have a Roth yet, you can see our picks for the best Roth IRA accounts in 2026.
It only takes about $625 a month to max one out
The IRS lets you contribute up to $7,500 to a Roth IRA in 2026 (or if you’re 50 or older, you get a catch-up bump that raises your limit to $8,600).
If you invest evenly throughout the year, $7,500 breaks down to roughly $625 a month. I’ll be honest, that’s a real chunk of money for most people.
But you don’t have to start there. You can open an account with a small amount and build the habit first. Even $50 or $100 a month puts compounding to work years earlier.
That early start is the whole game. The money you invest in your twenties has decades to grow, and time does far more of the work than any clever stock pick ever could.
My take if you’re just getting started
Our two accounts didn’t come from anything fancy. They came from opening them young, automating the contributions, and not touching them for a decade.
You can do the exact same thing, even if you start with small dollars this month. The sooner the money goes in, the longer it has to grow into something life-changing.
If you’re ready to begin, compare the best brokerage accounts for beginners where you can open a Roth IRA in 2026 and get your first contribution in.