Searching for a mutual fund.

There are 3 forms of investments that Dave Ramsey suggests. Investing in your 401k, IRA, and mutual funds. In this post I will talk only about mutual funds.

A mutual fund is a form of collective investment that pools money from many investors and invests the money in stocks, bonds, short-term money market instruments, and/or other securities. Mutual funds are to be used ONLY as a long term investment. You should not do any investing in a mutual fund unless you plan to keep your money in the money fund for at least 5 years or more (preferably 10 or more). When looking for a mutual fund, you should look at the statistics to make sure that it has performed well and also has a track record of at least 10 years. The average mutual fund will perform about 12% over the lifetime of the mutual fund. Note that you will be looking for the average interest earned over the lifetime of the mutual fund and NOT for the past year...

A couple of great website that sells mutual funds are fidelity and ameritrade.

For a great company that compiles a huge database of mutual funds, you may want to visit morningstar. There is also a paid portion to this site where the company gives you software that allows you to sort the mutual funds based upon your preferences.