At your age, CDs should not be part of your investment portfolio unless you need access to the money as some point before retirement. You should lean heavily towards stock mutual funds, with a dash of bond funds thrown in.

Mutual funds spread your risk among different stocks. They basically try to have as low a risk as possible while have a certain upside potential. At your age, you should have a fairly aggressive portfolio and the risk should be reduced as you get closer to retirement.

401ks and IRAs function differently in too many ways to list here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/401k_IRA_matrix is a great place to compare the simple and Roth versions of each. You should get financial advice from a professional if you don't feel comfortable making choices about this. Your employer may even provide someone for this. My employer, IBM, does.

Also, don't ignore outside investments. Real Estate is how many wealthy people became that way. If you want to retire early, having money outside of your 401k and IRA plans is important because of the restrictions on taking money from the plans before a certain age.

First, do your IRA. Tax free growth can't be beaten. 15% to retirement. If you invest in bonds, you expect to lose purchasing power over time. They have their uses, especially to pay expenses at a time certain. If no time certain, buy the break on a yield curve. That rule has made me money over a lifetime.
To gain, you must own something. That's where stocks come in. Invest in what you know. The best investment principles can be found in the ICAN system from Investors Business Daily. The only principle that lacks is not to pay too high a PE. After that, invest in a no load stock index fund. Research to find the lowest expense ratio and management fees. That will gain you sophistication.
Open an account with a deep discount broker so you can be ready when you have an investment idea. That ought to get you started.

If all these answers have you confused try the Motley Fool website ( www.fool.com ) for learning all about investing and a lot of other ways to make or save money.

Please check http://einvestorsforum.com, as this is the worldwide investments discussion network. Register for FREE, and post your doubts, you will get all the answers for your doubts.

Mutual fund is a pool of money from many investors that are managed by fund managers. this is the easiest way for regular investors to get exposed to stock market without having to actively monitor the stock performances.

You can invest in mutual funds if you are not ready to get involve in stock market or have not enough money yet to buy stocks for yourself; but expect higher return than CD.

Since you are still young and be making pretty good starting salary, invest in stock market or real estate yourself. Stock market able to offer huge growth potential. On the other hand, real estate can offer you good sleeping income. Combining both, you are pretty much on track to financial freedom by the time you retired.

Step-by-Step Stock Investing for Beginners
http://www.stock-investment-made-easy.com/
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=As61U R4DWXZnVDIVK6se6XLty6IX?qid=20070717183111AAk8IIS& show=7#profile-info-kFApW5uJaa

The best is Forex Trading. Now it is open to publiic. Don't put too much money in 401k which you cann't really enjoy. With forex trading you retire in 5 to 10 years. Since you are young please look into forex trading. In my resource I have provided the link where you can take free trial for 15 days and learn forex trading without loosing a dime.

Also you may look into High Yield income programs (hyip)
I have provided 5 best HYIP in the link below. You start with $50 or $100 or $1000 or more and earn 1.2 to 7% interest everyday. This is hottest thing today. Here learning curve zero. Just Invest and Earn.

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Great thinking of saving but also think about not getting into debt as well. If you are not paying your credit cards off each month you need to be spending less. If not what you are saving will not get you very far if you are in debt.

Your 401k is a very good place to start. Make sure you also have money in the bank so you do not have to get into your retirement funds. Most retirement funds have a tax penalty if taken before you are 59 1/2 .

Read up on investing and spending plans (budgets).