Weekend Links: Controlling My Parents Roth IRAs

Both my parents have Roth IRAs with Capital One Investment Services and I’ve been voicing my advice over how bad they’ve been managing their retirement accounts – no matter how small they may be.

They pay a $35 annual fee and own some weird investment fund that, I assume, was selected based on the advice of a broker. What lovely advice it was – for the broker – since he probably made some commissions for this recommendation.

I’ll be managing these accounts for them now. The first step would be transferring the accounts to Scottrade, where commissions are MUCH less. Then I’d be changing their investments to index funds, since they are less of a headache – especially for my parents.

Some interesting links from the personal finance blogosphere:

• 6 Smart Spending Questions To Ask Yourself Before Making A Purchase at Bible Money Matters. Controlling impulsive spending is so important to prevent debt accumulation. Stopping to ask yourself these questions could probably save you a lot of money.
• Don’t Flush Your Credit Down the Drain at SPENDonLIFE. An awesome infographic shows that path that your credit takes if you fail to pay your credit card bills.
• Maximize Strengths or Minimize Weaknesses? at Lazy Man and Money. I love taking a mental approach towards personal finance and this article suggests dealing with the weaknesses in our money management techniques rather than doing more of what we already do best.

Carnivals that Realm of Prosperity was featured in:

• Carnival of Personal Finance #239 – Hot Money Trends of 2010 Edition at Darwin’s Finance.