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Chris W. Rea
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Investing Account Options

I am new to this SE community so please inform me if there are ways I can edit or improve this question, a more appropriate place to post it, or better tags and title.

My grandmother is beginning to gift away money to her grandchildren to be used for investing. I was contacted by a family member and told to choose a bank / investment account / investing platform that I would like my money to be deposited into. The amount is small ($2,500), but I believe she intends to redeposit the same amount every 1 - 3 years.

My knowledge of investing is rather minimal, when I was 14 (circa 2007, I am currently 25) I became interested in investing and opened a Roth IRA through an Edward Jones. Since I had a small amount of capital (I opened with an initial $1000) I mostly researched mutual funds, but I also contributed $100 monthly to buy shares of what I decided was a relatively stable 'blue chip' stock (Proctor & Gamble) on a dollar-cost-averaging system. Through this process I learned some elementary investing terminology and concepts - diversification, volatility, etc.

Towards the end of high school and through college I became engrossed in academics to the point that I did not contribute to the account and was no longer learning more about finance or investing. Now that I am trying to research how I would like to restart investing, I am having difficulty finding good sources of information - everything I find seems to be incredibly laymen or incredibly advanced.

I don't have a specific investing goal currently, so I supposed an important factor to me would be for the bank / account to not be 'limiting' - that is, as I begin to become more savvy in investing and finance I would not like the account to make it difficult to switch to a different account, or restrict me to investment options that don't allow for more advanced strategies. Even though I knowingly drifted away from investing during my stressful school years, I always planned to return because I understand the value of beginning good financial habits / saving / investing earlier in life. Now that I am 25 and done with school, I am ready to return to planning a good financial future for myself.

Now, with all that explained, my specific question(s) that I would like answered:

  1. Does anyone have advice for someone in my shoes - good sources of information for how to choose an account, important things to consider when choosing an account, a good account to get my money in perhaps temporarily while I learn more about choosing a better long term account?

My degree is in mathematics so please feel free to provide information or resources that require mathematical competency.