Totally clueless about investments. Where do I begin?

On one of the last days of school, my Calculus teacher was talking to the class about retirement, investments, exponential growth, yada yada yada... I guess I wasn't paying attention for a while because he really only had my attention when he said "I f you start young, you could have hundreds of thousands by retirement!" I wish now that I had paid more attention. Does anyone have any advice as to how I could open up a 401k or IRA or something??

A 401K is offered by companies that you work for. A Roth IRA can be opened at a bank for personal use.

At banks or a credit union. All most all banks provide IRA's and 401k. If they do not have the service. They can point you in the right direction.

Absolutely. And your Calculus teacher was wrong. You will have MILLIONS.

If you are 25 and you put $200 a month in your IRA (which is very easy to do), you will have over $1,000,000 at age 65. That's assuming 10% returns for the next 40 years, which is very very realistic.

There are lots of good mutual fund companies. My personal favorite is T. Rowe Price. But Vangard is good. Fidelity as well. Stick with no load, low fee funds. It's very easy to invest in mutual funds.

Go buy yourself a book. Mutual Funds for Dummies. It's AWESOME. It really makes it all sink in.

401(k)'s have to be through your employer, but you can set up an IRA with any bank or finical institution. You can also invest in annuities, but I'd only recommend that if you've maxed out on what the IRS will let you invest in 401(k)'s and IRA's.

Here are some finical institution websites to look at:

Vanguard: http://www.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/Corpor...
ING Direct: http://home.ingdirect.com/
AIG: http://www.aig.com/gateway/home
MetLife: http://www.metlife.com/Applications/Corp...
New York Life: http://www.newyorklife.com/

Before you start opening accounts, educate yourself a bit first. Read about guidelines for investing, learn the basics of the financial markets, educate yourself about the power of compounding investment returns (your most powerful financial tool) and then read about retirement accounts like 401(k)'s and IRAs.

It's important to understand that all of these things work out better for you if they occur within the context of a financial plan.

Read the webpages listed below in the order in which they are listed for basic information about these areas.

Good luck.