If you had earned income in 2012 and you'd like to make an IRA contribution on that tax year, it's not too late!  You can make IRA contributions to the previous tax year up through April 15th of the following year, the day that tax forms are typically due.

Already filed your taxes?  There are no tax consequences if you contribute to a Roth IRA, so you can still contribute toward last year's contribution limits without amending your tax return.

See Morningstar's full review here

Vanguard's Target Retirement Funds were awarded a gold rating last month by Morningstar (1), a leading investment analysis firm.  As discussed in my Roth IRA introduction, you can build a balanced portfolio simply by investing in one of these funds - they hold a balanced mix of Vanguard's highest-rated domestic stock, international stock, and bond market index funds.

The minimum initial investment is $1000 and the additional investment limit is only $100, so you can put some money in now and set up automatic monthly investments for only a $3.33 a day.  If $3.33 is still too steep, you can configure automatic investments to only occur every other month ($1.67/day) or once per quarter ($0.83).

Budget this - it's critically important.