I Just Opened My First Retirement Account. Here's Why I Opted for a Robo-Advisor

As of just a few weeks ago, I now have my own individual retirement account (IRA) -- for the first time ever, at age 40. It would have been better to get started with retirement savings earlier, but I lived paycheck to paycheck until quite recently and didn't have access to employer-sponsored retirement accounts with matched contributions for most of my old career.

I spent the last few years accomplishing other financial goals (namely, paying off high-interest debt, building an emergency fund, and becoming a homeowner). With all that in the rearview mirror, it was time to start saving for retirement. I opened my IRA with a brokerage firm that offers robo-advisory services, and I've happily jumped in with both feet.

Here's why a robo-advisor was right for me -- could it also be right for you?

I wanted to make retirement saving easy

I'm pretty new to the world of investing. My experience with non-retirement investing is also quite minimal. I have a taxable brokerage account with just a few hundred dollars in it, which I opened last spring to dip my toes, so to speak.

I'm glad I opened that account, but managing it has been a bit intimidating for me, which is why I haven't added much money to it. For retirement savings, I didn't want my own lack of experience with investing to be a hindrance. Using a robo-advisor keeps the process easy for a beginning investor like me.

Every week, I send money to my IRA, and it's invested for me. I don't have to think about it beyond making the cash transfer. And if I wanted to make the process even easier, I could set up an automatic transfer. I don't know if I'll ever do this (I actually enjoy moving the money myself), but it's an option.

I also wanted to make it boring

Beyond making retirement saving as easy as possible, I also wanted it to be boring. This might sound counterintuitive -- a lot of people are super invested in investing, so to speak. There's no shortage of content out there about choosing investments.

But honestly, I'm more excited by the prospect of boring and predictable investments, like the S&P 500. Over the last five decades, it's returned an average of 10% per year.

In real numbers, this means that if I can fund my new IRA with the annual limit of $7,000 (as of now; IRA limits do rise over time, and starting at age 50, I'll be eligible to contribute even more) for the next three decades, I could wind up with over $1 million. Not bad for a boring investment.

The nice thing about using a robo-advisor is that my contributions are automatically funneled into ETFs (exchange-traded funds) that track the performance of the S&P 500. It might not be sexy, but retirement savings doesn't need to be. All I need are steady gains and diversification, and this way, I should be able to have both.

Welcome to the modern world of investing

Gone are the days where someone like me would've had to either learn how to choose investments or hire someone to do the picking for me. Now I can use a robo-advisor to ensure my retirement savings will grow over the next few decades.

Should you do the same? I can't answer that for you -- but if keeping retirement investing easy and boring sounds good to you, explore your robo-advisory options to choose a winner.