Most people have the bulk of their investment dollars inside of their company sponsored retirement plan, most often a 401K. A 401K is a great way to invest for a lot of reasons. First, your contributions come out of your paycheck pre-tax. This reduces your taxable income, which means you keep more of your pay and give less to the government. Second, your employer most likely has some kind of matching contribution as a benefit to you. Many employers will match your 401K contributions dollar for dollar up to a certain limit. This is free money for you and helps you build up your savings quickly. The biggest downside of a 401K is that you are limited to investments available inside the plan. Many plans only give you a few handfuls of choices, and a lot of them aren’t that great. We manage 401K accounts for a lot of our employees through a self-directed option, sometimes called a brokerage-link account. This type of arrangement allows you to move your money into an account with your custodian that has unlimited investment choices in it. All you need to do is ask your 401K custodian (Fidelity, Schwab, etc.) if your plan offers a self-directed option, or brokerage-link option. Many 401K plans also allow active employees to roll over a portion of their account to an IRA even though they are still working (called an in-service rollover). The best way to find out what your options are is to talk to your 401K custodian (where the money is invested). We have found that even many employer human resource representatives are not aware of all the options available to 401K participants.