Roth is Beautiful
OK, just in case you've been living in a financial cave, here's the basics on how Roth IRAs work. Unlike a normal IRA where you only pay taxes when you take money out of the account, with a Roth IRA you only pay money when you put money into the account. This means that all interest, dividends and capital gains are never taxed.
For more detail check out the Roth IRA entry at Wikipedia.
Tax-defered accounts may be great, but when you dig into the details of Roth IRAs, it's pretty clear that they are, hands down, the best place to put your money.A not too widely known fact is that you can actually access your contributions to a Roth IRA before age 59 1/2 without penalty. You are permitted to withdraw your contributions to the account (not the interest, dividends or gains) at any time, 100% tax free. I can't stress enough how fantastic this is. You can put as much money into the Roth as you can, and then tap into the contributions when you need some cash. As long as you don't ever withdraw more than you have actually contributed, you'll never pay a cent in taxes on money taken out of the account.
Let's also not forget that fincancial advantages aside, the simplicity of not having to pay taxes on your money is worth, well, a lot of money!