What is the best way to invest? PRIMERICA? INTERNET?

Question Details: i am a first time investor. i have a few stocks and a 401k. i want to venture out, but i don't know the best way. should i join and investment club? go with Primerica? try the internet for companies like ING?

what do you suggest?

The options are limitless like you know. Your primary concerns should be:
-High long term returns **The stock market has averaged 12% over the last 85 years
-Reducing taxes
-Reducing risk (diversity)
-Low Fees

If this investment is for retirement, a ROTH IRA is the best way to go. The money grows tax free and is completely tax free when you withdraw it in retirement. Most mutual fund companies and many stock brockerages and banks offer ROTHs.
To diversify while keeping the good returns of the stock market, an index fund or multiple index funds is best. They offer you a broad array of stocks that perform like the market and keep fees very low.
The lowest priced index funds on the market (that I've seen) are in Vanguard. Their fees tend to be around 0.2%/year with no other fees involved. The industry average is over 1%/year and many companies charge other fees on top of that.

Here is the page for Vanguard ROTH IRAs:
https://flagship.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/...
I recommend reading that page, much good information. And if you're ready to invest (or see what's involved in investing), there is a "Invest Now" link in the upper right corner of that page.

For the other options you mentioned:
Primerica tends to charge 5% load (up front fee) and ~1.3%/year fees. They would have to tremendously outperform the market to make up for those fees (not likely).

I don't know much about ING except that it's an online bank. If they are offering an ING IRA or CD of some sort, the interest rate is probably around 5-6% which is far too low for almost anyone's investment needs. If they are offering a stock buying service it probably costs so much per trade so it would be expensive to get good diversification.

Edit to add: Primerica is amazing for getting a free personal financial plan made. They will give you a fairly detailed plan to get you from your current point to meeting future goals and dreams. They also offer great, inexpensive life insurance that I would recommend over almost any non-work provided life insurance (and they do a great job of helping you understand how much insurance you should have and for how long). Their home loans are not as amazing as they state, but not bad either... But their investments are just so crazy expensive that I would never consider them. **I was a personal financial analyst through Primerica for a couple years.

If you go with Primerica, you get a professional expert to help you pick suitable mutual funds for you. They have lots of quality mutual fund families that has low annual expenses.

If go on the internet, you have to pick your own mutual funds, which is a gamble with your money if you don't know what to look for.

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