Recommend your automatic investment system

[Deleted]

DH and I are sitting on way too much cash and need to start investing it. These savings are eventually going to be our downpayment on a house, but we're nowhere near the amount we'd need for that (VHCOL), so we probably won't need the cash for around 5 years. Since right now it's just sitting in our savings account and we add to it every month, I was thinking we should start automatically investing a chunk every month, probably in a fund or funds of some sort (I'm still researching this).

Anyway, I'm not looking for advice on which funds to buy, just which online brokerage you use and its pros and cons. Please specify what kind of investments you make through the brokerage.

[Deleted]

I have used both Fidelity and Vanguard and have no complaints about either. Our portfolios have a mix of stocks and funds/ETFs (index funds, bond funds, gold funds, I forget what else), as well as our IRAs which have more retirement-appropriate investments.

We've had to switch back and forth between Fidelity and Vanguard a few times because of strange investment restrictions due to my husband's job but really I see no difference between them quality or customer service-wise.

[audette]

Right now we're going with a simple system. We picked a few mutual funds offered at our bank (USAA), and have money directly moved from our checking account to those funds twice a month, shortly after payday.

Over time, and as our incomes increased, the amount we moved over has increased.

It's worked pretty well for us, although I suspect we might be getting up to a level where we probably want to start talking to a professional money manager.

[Deleted]

Thanks! I'm thinking about going with Vanguard, though now that I think about it my 401k is through Fidelity (but I don't look at it very often).
audette - Sounds like a good system. I'm hoping to avoid talking to a professional money manager for a while, I don't want to pay someone to do things I can figure out for myself. It might be worth it at some point though.