My daughter got her first job this summer and has a bit of extra cash to play with. She's listened to me enough to understand that saving/investing is a good thing. Time can be one heck of an ally in wealth building, and starting at 16, even if starting small, is an awful lot of time for growth.

Fidelity offers custodial youth accounts with no minimums, so I've opened one of those. I personally have my money at Vanguard, but they don't offer youth accounts. I'm now trying to figure out where to put her money.

She has maybe $1000 she wants to save/invest. She's leaning toward half in a Roth IRA and half in just an investment account that can start growing for use in college, to buy a house, or whatever money is needed for in the future (but before retirement).

I've explained index funds and how very few managed funds can beat them, and I've also explained how risk/reward works in investing. With the IRA, she has such a long time horizon, anything but 100% equity investment would be irresponsible. But the regular investment account is a bit muddier.

I'm thinking for the Roth, maybe 75% in Fidelity's Zero Total Market Index Fund and 25% in Fidelity's Zero International Index fund is a good, effective, and still simple way to get started.

I'm not sure what kinds of things to suggest for the investment account, though. Personally, I prefer a growth fund of some sort (vs. an income fund) just so you don't have tax implications until you sell. For example, I've got much of mine in Vanguard's Lifestrategy Moderate Growth fund...still somewhat conservative, but focused on growth over income. But I can't find something similar at Fidelity.

Last thing is I think my plan is to match her Roth investment by 50-100%. I figure as a parent, part of our job is to enable/encourage good decisions (vs. making decisions for them), and that is one thing I can do to encourage a saving/investing mindset. Still waffling on matching the regular investment funds or not...if so, maybe 10% or so instead of 50%+.

My main questions are does this sound like a good track, or am I missing something? Any thoughts on how to pick one or two funds for the regular investment account (the indeterminate timeline makes it tough...she could want the money in 3-5 years, or it could be 15+)?