[bryanalves]

Thanks for the resources guys. It sounds like I need at least a couple of index funds to be adequately diversified, and the books that have been mentioned here have been mentioned in numerous other places that I've seen; time to give them a look and spend at least a little time learning.

As for the people talking about not taking the time to learn, I understand that I'm not going to have crazy returns or anything like that. I just want an investment vehicle that will outperform basic savings accounts and such, and, hopefully, beat inflation.

Also, as for people saying "don't put money in the stock market if you need it in 3-6 years." I certainly won't need it; I was more emphasizing that I want something sooner than 401k, and potentially would like to have it available that soon. T

he more realistic scenario is I use it as a gap retirement fund. I'm 26 now, and would be happy to retire in 25-30 years. This means I need 10-15 years of gap money before 401k becomes viable.

Vanguard has been mentioned multiple times in this thread. I used to have a 401k with them, with a previous employer, but I didn't pay much attention to their offerings. For passively dumping small amounts of money into a small set of ETFs monthly, do they offer a superior service to some of the other online brokers that I mentioned?