Pay Dirt is Slate’s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here . (It’s anonymous!)

Dear Pay Dirt,

I made a colossal mistake concerning my retirement.

When I started working full-time at 18, I got a great benefits package, including the option to invest in a simple IRA. In addition to the 3 percent employer match, I’ve been making additional contributions, trying to increase my percentage a bit whenever possible, currently at 21 percent.

The advice I’d always been given is that novice investors should never try to play the market, no attempts to buy low/sell high or pick additional stocks, and that seemed very sound, as I have no experience in the field, so I just kept my hands off and assumed that the fund manager was doing whatever needed to

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