Buying up some mutual funds.

[natedogg]

All my (amateur) research has led me to believe that ETFs are better than funds.

natedogg

[parttimepro]

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All my (amateur) research has led me to believe that ETFs are better than funds.

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It depends on whether you're going to invest once, or increase your investment every month or so. If you only invest once, the lower fees charged by ETFs are better. If you're buying every month, the extra commissions you need to pay to buy ETFs outweigh the lower fees.

[TGoldman]

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It depends on whether you're going to invest once, or increase your investment every month or so. If you only invest once, the lower fees charged by ETFs are better. If you're buying every month, the extra commissions you need to pay to buy ETFs outweigh the lower fees.

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Not necessarily. If your amount invested is very large, then it still makes sense to stick with ETFs even if you will incur many small transaction fees. This makes sense if the amount you'll save in maintenance fees (Often between 0.5% and 1%) exceeds the costs of the commissions. For most people, though, you are correct that small time investors are better off at least starting off with no-load mutual funds in order to reduce transaction costs.