Guest Post: Should You Open a Custodial Roth IRA For Your Child?

The pros, cons, and what parents should know before getting started.

If you’re anything like me, there’s a moment where it suddenly hits you: Oh wow, we’re responsible for helping them make smart money choices. Not just saving for college or covering the next sports fee, but teaching them how money works long-term.

For some parents, that realization may come when a teenager starts earning money. For others, it may come much earlier.

One financial tool you may consider is a Custodial Roth IRA.

At first glance, it can sound a little…intense. A retirement account for a kid? When they still need reminders to put their shoes away? Totally fair reaction. But the reason so many parents are curious about Custodial Roth IRAs is simple: time. When you start investing for your child early—even if it’s just small amounts—they have decades for that money to grow.

That said, a Custodial Roth IRA isn’t a magic solution or a must-do for every family. There are some really compelling benefits, but there are also trade-offs that parents should understand before jumping in.

What Is a Custodial Roth IRA?

At its core, a Custodial Roth IRA is just a retirement account for a child who earns money—but with a grown-up managing it (that’s the “custodial” part).

Because kids under 18 (or 21, depending on your state) can’t legally open and manage their own investment accounts, a parent or guardian steps in as the custodian. You’re the one opening the account, choosing the investments, and keeping things on track—for now. The account itself, though, is in your child’s name, and eventually, it becomes fully theirs.

The big requirement to know upfront? Your child must have earned income. That means money from an actual job—like working at a coffee shop, lifeguarding, babysitting, tutoring, or even certain types of self-employment. Birthday money, allowance, and chore payments don’t count here, which surprises a lot of parents at first.

What makes a Custodial Roth IRA especially appealing is how it’s funded. Contributions are made with after-tax dollars, but once the money is in the account, it can grow tax-free. And if your child follows the rules, they’ll be able to withdraw that money tax-free in retirement.

One important thing to understand is that this isn’t a savings account you can dip into whenever you want. While there’s some flexibility, the purpose of a Custodial Roth IRA is long-term growth.

Eventually—usually when your child turns 18 or 21—the custodial part ends, and full control of the account transfers to them. At that point, the money is theirs to manage.

Hope for Moms: It's Tough Out There, but So Are You Blog Tour: Review & Giveaway

Have you ever felt that parenting is such a demanding job that you can never be fully prepared for it? Then you are not alone, as evidenced in Hope for Moms: It's Tough Out There, but So Are You by Anna McArthur. Read about Anna's adventure as a mom to four and enter to win a paperback copy of her new book!

My Review:

Written with humor and honesty, Hope for Moms: It's Tough Out There, but So Are You is an empowering and reassuring book that celebrates motherhood, diversity, empathy and bravery. It addresses a variety of parenting challenges related to adolescence, transracial adoption, learning disabilities, sexual orientation and social justice.

Drawing on a triage system she once employed during hard times, Anna organizes her book into three sections: "Yes" - lessons from motherhood that are worth keeping, "No" - things that don't deserve her attention, time or energy, and "Maybe" - areas that she wants to nurture for the future. Each chapter starts with Anna's real-life experience and concludes with questions or prompts that invite the reader to participate in the discussion.

By sharing her unique parenting journey, the author does not intend to instruct fellow moms, but to inspire them to develop their own systems based on the specific needs of their children. Although the challenges she encounters as a mom are quite different from mine, I find the lessons she draws to be very relatable and applicable. Her humorous, delightful writing style gives the book a feel of a casual chat between mommy friends. Her discussion about what true self-care entails really resonates with me. Moreover, her story helps me realize the severity of systemic racism on a more personal level.

With her genuine voice, Anna encourages moms to learn and grow with their children, to have confidence in their instincts and capabilities, and to master the art of prioritizing. While many books teach about how to raise resilient kids, this one sheds light on how to become resilient parents.

Insightful and thought-provoking, Hope for Moms makes the perfect read for Mother's Day and beyond. It'd be enjoyed and appreciated by moms and those who care to learn about the joys and pains of motherhood.

About the Book:

Ages: 18+ | 168 Pages
Publisher: Beaver’s Pond Press (2025) | ISBN: 978-1-64343-560-2

Many of us did everything we could to prepare for becoming moms, but there just wasn’t any way to know what might lie ahead. Most of us have, at one point or another, looked around and wondered if we are alone in our parenting challenges. Hope for Moms offers a heartfelt guide for mothers navigating both the joys and heartbreak of being a mom, sharing Anna McArthur’s personal journey through parenting difficulties such as learning disabilities, LGBTQ+ identities, and adoption. Structured around a triage plan that helped the author prioritize her family’s needs, it includes practical insights, quotes, and reflection questions to support moms in their journey of resilience and soul care. With gentleness and humor, McArthur provides reassurance to mothers, reminding them they have the strength to not only survive motherhood, but thrive.

McArthur provides reassurance to mothers, reminding them they have the strength to not only survive motherhood, but thrive. If you’re a mom who feels overwhelmed by the curveballs life has thrown your way, you aren’t alone—yes, it’s tough out there, but so are you!

Purchase links: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Bookshop.org

My Home Filled With Love Blog Tour: Review and Prize Pack Giveaway

Home means a lot for us. It's where we feel safe, comfortable and loved. As parents, what can we do to create a truly sweet home for our children to grow and thrive in? Desiree Blanchard offers some expert advice in her new book My Home Filled With Love. Check it out and enter to win a cute prize pack!

My Review:

My Home Filled With Love is a colorful and cheerful rhyming picture book about love, family, and parent-child relationship. Told from a little girl's point of view, the story shares all the little things her parents do in daily life to show their love, from waking her up gently in the morning and getting her ready for school to welcoming her home with hugs and cooking her yummy meals. The book concludes with a summary of its key messages, thought-provoking questions to stimulate discussion, and bonus activities like mazes and a coloring page to further the fun of reading.

Featuring smiling characters who radiate joy and happiness and easy-to-relate real-life senarios, the book helps young readers realize and appreciate what their parents have been doing to provide them with care, protection, comfort and guidance. Meanwhile, it encourages both parents to get involved in childcare, to play and learn together with their children, and to take every opportunity to let the little ones know how much they are being loved. By variating the fonts and colors of the text, the book also makes it easy for early readers to learn about rhyming words and to build their vocabulary.

Overall, it's an endearing book that children and their parents would enjoy reading aloud together while exploring ways to fill their home with love.

About the Book:

Ages 3+ | 40 Pages
Publisher: Tabletop Teaching LLC | ISBN-13: 9798985961355

This beautifully illustrated children’s book is more than just another cute rhyming story. My Home Filled With Love shows kids and parents what a nurturing environment at home is all about. With this story, kids will learn more about how much you, as their parent or caregiver, love them with every choice you make.

My Home Filled With Love is a must-have for new parents, old parents, and all the parents in between! Written by Desiree Blanchard, Positive Parenting Instagram Influencer and Early Child Interventionist, this book is a perfect gift for parents looking to create a nurturing and inclusive environment for their kids!

Purchase Links: Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes and Noble

Guest Post: The 4 Best Personal Finance Apps For New Parents

Learn how you can keep track of your current spending habits and plan for your financial future using these helpful applications

If you are a new parent, then you’ve likely already worried about managing a family budget. While you may have kept a budget for yourself in the past, keeping the family finance in order is a brand new challenge. However, keeping track of your spending habits and plans for the future doesn’t have to be overwhelming.

These days, it is easier than ever to keep track of your finances using your smartphone. You can use different apps to track your spending, check your savings, pay your bills, and even manage your term life insurance policy. We’ll be getting to all of these features and more as we discuss the best personal finance applications for new parents. If you are a new parent interested in help managing your finances—you are not alone! Keep reading to find out how these apps make previously complicated financial tasks easier than ever before.

1. Fabric

Using Fabric, you can secure a term life insurance quote, manage your policy, and access several other useful planning tools.

Easily manage your insurance coverage with the Fabric app. Image courtesy of Investopedia.

If you are a new parent and you haven’t heard of Fabric before—this is an app you definitely want to check out. Fabric is one of the few finance applications that is specifically designed to meet the needs of young families. Using the Fabric app, you view different term life insurance quotes, manage your life insurance policy, access free will writing services, and help you manage your day to day finances. Fabric offers a variety of policies including no-medical-exam term life insurance quotes so you can get the coverage you need to protect your family. When you download the Fabric application, you’ll first be presented with a list of questions to help the application learn more about your family, your financial situation, and the services you require. After that, Fabric will create a personalized financial checklist that you can use to take care of the most pressing duties first. Once you have your checklist, you can get started working on your top priorities as organized by the Fabric app. As part of your financial checklist, the Fabric app also allows you to manage your savings accounts—like a college savings account for example.

New parents can also use the application to easily create a will at no cost to the user. Writing a will is especially important for new parents to plan for the future—no matter what happens. Using the Fabric app, parents can designate a guardian for their children, name beneficiaries for assets, and choose an executor for your will. This service is all available to all users completely for free.

Beyond setting goals and managing your will, new parents can also take advantage of the financial planning aspects of the Fabric app. It can be difficult to get a big-picture idea of your finances when you have several accounts and credit cards between yourself and your spouse. When you use the Fabric app, your family can easily link all accounts and credit cards so that you can view all of your finances in the same application.

Overall, the Fabric app offers term life insurance quotes and comprehensive life insurance services along with budgeting and savings tools that are perfect for new parents. This makes it one of our top choices for new parents who are looking for ways to view all of their finances in one place. Additionally, all information stored in the application is heavily encrypted at bank-level security, so you won’t have to worry about potential hackers.

Protecting Your Child’s Health: Expert Answers to Urgent Environmental Questions (Excerpts Inside)

Hot off the press comes Protecting Your Child’s Health: Expert Answers to Urgent Environmental Questions, the latest guide book from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). It'd be the perfect addition to your collection of parenting books if you would like to become better educated about how to protect your child from potential health hazards posed by environmental issues.

About the Book:

Because of their smaller,rapidly growing bodies, babies, children and adolescents are at a higher risk of negative effects from exposure to environmental hazards. Protecting Your Child’s Health provides guidance from the experts at the AAP to help parents protect their children from toxins where they live, learn and play – as well help to prevent unnecessary exposure.

With an easy-to-follow Q&A format that offers advice across a variety of environmental topics, the book empowers parents and caregivers to make educated choices and arms them with invaluable information about food and water safety,air pollution, sun protection, lead, radiation, and pesticides that children may encounter at home, at school or in the community. It also teaches us that although large scale events such as massive forest fires heighten awareness of environmental threats, we must also pay attention to the invisible hazards in children’s day to day lives.

The book is now available for purchase on Amazon.

The Benefits of Getting Children Involved in Adopting Pets

Getting a four-legged friend for your home is an important decision that calls for the input of everyone in the family, including the younger members. If you are considering adopting a pet, I'd strongly suggest getting your kids involved in the entire process from finding the perfect pet for adoption to taking care of the new pet at home. This is especially necessary if your child is the one who asked for a new pet in the first place. And there are quite a few benefits for doing so.

1. Recognize the significance of saving lives.
Adopting a pet usually means saving it from being homeless or being euthanized due to lack of space in a shelter. By providing a lovely animal with a loving home, you'll not only enrich your own life, but may also save the life of another animal in need of shelter space. That's why 'saving lives' is often cited as one of the top reasons for adopting pets. You can take this opportunity to teach your child about how the adoption could make a positive impact on the lives of those animals and how it would make our own lives more meaningful.

2. Learn about the basics of decision-making.
Choosing the right pet to adopt for your family is the perfect exercise for developing decision-making skills. You may discuss with your child which breed you prefer. For instance, Chihuahuas make a highly sensible choice in San Diego because the warm, agreeable weather suits them really well. Besides, Chihuahuas are super cute and great with children. You and your child can search online for Chihuahuas available for adoption in your vicinity, attend a meetup or visit a shelter, until you find the one that is meant to become a part of your family. In the process, your kid will learn how to prioritize, how to weigh pros and cons, how to justify a decision, and things along those lines.

3. Learn to take responsibilities.
A new pet to your home will bring along a lot of responsibilities and commitments. Let your child take a share or even take the lead in fulfilling those responsibilities, such as walking the dog, grooming, feeding, potty training, visiting the vet, etc. Kids will not only learn many essential life skills along the way, they will also likely learn to appreciate all the things that their parents have done for them. They may even strengthen their bonds with their parents because of better understanding and because of sharing the care-giving responsibilities for their beloved pet.

Oh Susannah: It’s in the Bag Blog Tour: Review & Prize Pack Giveaway #OhSusannahStory

We've all had one of those days, when everything seems to go against you. Even grownups may have trouble handling such disagreeable situations with grace, let alone a little girl like Susannah. Stuffing all the problems in her school bag and hiding it under the bed doesn't seem to get Susannah anywhere, as is apparent in award-winning author Carole P. Roman's brand new chapter book Oh Susannah: It’s in the Bag. This short and sweet story leads us into the not-so-perfect world of Susannah, a kind, lively and highly imaginative third-grader who is so relatable to young readers in that they can easily see pieces of themselves in her...a picky eater, a daydreamer, puzzled by math equations, afraid of creepy sounds possibly caused by ghosts, just to name a few.

The book is skillfully written in succinct yet vivid language and with a great sense of humor that entertains both young and older readers. More importantly, the story touches upon a common problem that bothers school-age kids but often gets neglected by their parents: how to manage stress and frustration. Yes, children can be stressed out too! Third grade is a crucial developmental stage for many children both intellectually and psychologically. Kids of this age tend to be torn between the desire to become more independent and the need for outside support due to the fact that they still have a lot to learn and grasp. This may explain why Susannah is hesitant to ask her parents for help when she's so frustrated by the math problems in her homework.

Oh Susannah: It’s in the Bag is an educational and enlightening read for both kids and parents. While it shows kids how to become a better problem solver, to stay organized, and to stop procrastinating, it encourages parents to strive for balance between work and family, to be more attentive to not only the physical but also the emotional needs of their children, to spend more time communicating with their children, and to offer a helping hand whenever necessary. After reading the story, I felt the urge to reflect upon my own parenting style. I have to admit that I, too, like Susannah's mom, sometimes expected too much from my oldest, and thus placed too much pressure on him without even realizing it. I'm glad that I read this book in time to make improvements! Hope you'll all get the chance to read Oh Susannah and learn something new from it.

150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids Review & Giveaway {Best of 2014 Giveaway Hop}

What do you think is the best book of 2014? Over 100 bloggers are sharing their favorite book published or read in 2014 during the Best of 2014 Giveaway Hop. Hop around to discover some of the best books of the year and enter to win the ones you are interested in reading!

Remember the good old days when we don't have computer, smartphone or tablet but can still have tons of fun playing with everyday items plus our active imagination? Did you ever feel guilty of letting your TV, laptop, iPad, or smartphone babysit your child? Research has shown that too much screen-time harms children's well-being and increases anxiety. While parents and educators are increasingly concerned about how much screen-time kids get, they don't always know what to introduce as an alternative.

What I believe is the best book of 2014 that helps parents bring back playtime and rediscover the spirit of imaginative play is 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids: The Very Best and Easiest Playtime Activities from FunAtHomeWithKids.com! by Asia Citro, founder of the popular parenting blog Fun at home with kids,

The book features 150+ one-of-a-kind hands-on projects with step-by-step instructions and beautiful photos to help develop children's creativity and skills without the use of any electronics. Many of the activities are good for babies. Each project is budget-friendly and can be completed using items found at a regular grocery store. Most of the activities are designed to encourage multi-age/sibling play, and can be done with or without the assistance of parents.

Runabouts Book Blast: $25 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway

Join P.J. Jenkins, author of the parenting/bullying book, Runabouts, as she tours the blogosphere September 9 - September 20 on her first Book Blast with Pump Up Your Book!  Read on for more information about the book and enter for your chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card or PayPal Cash kindly provided by the author!

ABOUT RUNABOUTS
Runabouts is a story about friends having fun together, as well as dealing with unpleasant situations. Sunny is a very good friend and tries to make sure that his friends are not taken advantage of by bullies. He also shows us how we can make choices for our own behavior even if others don't want to change their behavior. Sunny could leave Sharky stuck in the mud or he could choose to help him. What would you do? Enjoy the fun of zooming through the water and feeling the water spray over your face. I hope it will make you anxious to enjoy the water and warm weather just like Sunny.

Purchase your copy:

Soft or Strong? What's Your Choice? #CharminVote

Parenting has been an ongoing learning process for me. I find it more challenging to take care of children's emotional and psychological health than their physical well-being. Every small action I take might have a long-term impact on their behavior. It is therefore important to establish some basic principles about when to play soft or play strong and be consistent.

I'm usually soft and permissive to my preschooler when he makes a mistake out of good intention. For instance, he tried to help mom with cleaning but ended up spilling the trash can. He tried to show affection to his baby brother but the hug was too tight. Instead of criticizing him for making a mess, I assess the situation, ask him to explain how it happens, show appreciation for his good intention, and then discuss about what he has learned from the accident and how to avoid it next time.

I can't act strong when my son appears to be sleepy or tired, because it proved to be useless to try disciplining an exhausted child, who has lost control over his own behavior.

Young children are no less sensitive than teenagers. I will sooth and encourage my son softly when he gets frustrated over a new game or new skill that he is trying to master.

I am firm and strong however when it comes to discipline. I have zero tolerance for certain types of misbehavior, such as being wasteful, disrespectful or destructive. While I am always outspoken about my love for my kids, I also teach them about the importance of following rules and setting boundaries. It is OK to not take a nap, but it is unacceptable to make loud noises while others are sleeping. I repeatedly tell my son to treat others in ways that he likes to be treated.

I am also strong to keep my "no" promises. No candy before bedtime. No toy cleaned up, no meal will be served...

Have The Talk & Chance to Win $100!

To encourage parents to have "The Talk" with their teens about financial responsibility, iVillage and Pass from American Express have recently joined forces for a Facebook campaign to raise money for the Junior Achievement Scholarship Fund. It's really easy for you to help them out. Simply go to The Talk tab on iVillage's Facebook page and share the "I Had The Talk" badge with your Facebook friends. For every shared badge iVillage will donate $1 to the Junior Achievement Scholarship Fund, for up to $5,000.

The holiday season is about gifting and giving. It's also the perfect time to teach our kids about saving and sharing. I didn't really have "The Talk" with my son primarily because he is way too young to comprehend it, but also because I believe action speaks louder than words. Instead of telling him that we should give back during the holidays, I took him to shop for the toys we were donating to Toys for Tots and had him put those toys in the donation box. He was excited to know that someone out there would receive a Christmas gift from him.

I also got him involved in choosing and wrapping gifts for his grandparents, his preschool teachers and his best friends. He seemed to entertain the idea that Christmas is gift time for everyone, including himself. He enjoyed being treated like a big boy and helping mom prepare stuff for people he loves.

Do you have any tips about teaching kids the spirit of giving? You could win 1 of 2 $100 American Express gift cards if you share them in a blog post and leave your link at Good N Crazy. But you'll need to hurry because the giveaway ends midnight today. Don't forget to help iVillage reach their donation goal while you're on Facebook!

Disclosure: By writing this post, I'm entered to win a gift card. Thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

Book Review: How To Choose The Best Preschool For Your Child

My husband and I plan to send our son to preschool next year, but as first-time parents, we're completely clueless about how to choose the right school. Jenifer Wana came to our rescue with her brilliant book: How to Choose the Best Preschool for Your Child: The Ultimate Guide to Finding, Getting Into, and Preparing for Nursery School (Sourcebooks; TP $14.99; August 2010). Luckily, I was chosen by Family Review Network and Sourcebooks to receive a free copy of this book for review before it was made available to the general public. It's THE book we've been looking for and it arrived just in time to lead us out of the maze of preschool search.

Written by a mom of two, How to Choose the Best Preschool for Your Child tells you everything you need to know about choosing a preschool and guides you through the process step by step. After reading this book, I got a much better idea of how the system works and of what it takes to choose a preschool that fits my child well. The book starts with a brief introduction to preschool and the benefits of attending one. It then lays out the preschool search time line and offers tips for keeping organized during the search.

The book proceeds with discussions about various types of preschool programs, criteria to consider when choosing a school, what to ask and observe during a school visit, tips for helping your child get prepared for the start of preschool life, and other important topics that parents are likely to be concerned about.

I love Jenifer's writing style--smooth, clear and concise. Her book is easy to read, yet highly informative. I consider How to Choose the Best Preschool for Your Child the most comprehensive guidebook for parents looking to send their child to preschool. It'll save you considerable time and trial-and-error during the process of researching, visiting, and applying to preschools. I expect it to be as popular as the What to Expect series in the days to come. You should definitely get one while it's still hot off the press!

About the Author
Jenifer Wana is currently the director of brand marketing at Pottery Barn, responsible for special events such as book signings and classes, plus promotions, partnerships, and advertising. She previously held marketing positions at In Style magazine, L'Oreal and Gap Inc. Jenifer received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She teaches workshops for parents on choosing a preschool and her seminar on preparing for preschool will be taught at Pottery Barn Kids stores nationwide this summer.

Disclosure: This post was written for Family Review Network & Sourcebooks who provided the complimentary product in exchange for my honest review.

Join Parents Insight Netwok and Test Products for FREE

If you're a parent and you like testing new products, filling out surveys, or participating in focus groups, the Parents Insight Network is a great panel you don't want to miss. Parents Insight Network is now accepting new members. But hurry! The recruitment will close once they reach 500 qualified new members. Please complete the sign-up survey and leave my Facebook name in the "referring member" blank.

Examples of their projects:

• Parents were invited to Target to evaluate the baby section, and were rewarded with a check for $50

• Members are currently reviewing and evaluating different brands of the same product (like head supports for infants and booster seats for toddlers), and they get to keep all of the products they test!

• Parents completed a quick online survey about baby travel brands and were each rewarded with a $10 Amazon Gift Card

Forgot to add: they'd like to have more Dads involved, although moms are welcome to apply too.

Hope you'll enjoy being a member!

I use Zoomerang online surveys

Momfinitions

Every mom has a set of definitions that can't be looked up in Webster. ParentsConnect.com is calling all moms to help them compile their dictionary of funny Momfinitions.

Here are my top five entries:

Laptod noun.-A toddler who makes every effort to take over mommy's laptop. Tricks my little monkey loves include rapid blind typing on the keyboard, dragging the external mouse and pulling off the AC adapter.

Armplane noun.-The world's safest plane constructed with mommy's arms. This is my son's favorite personal aircraft, which gives him the thrill of flying! I, the pilot, am always rewarded with hearty giggles.

Tublet noun.-A bathtub that is accidentally yet conveniently turned into a toilet. The bathtub just came in handy when my toddler wanted to use the toilet towards the end of a warm bath. Tublet usually means an extra round of rinsing!

Peek-A-Poop noun.-A commonly used technique to detect the need for a diaper change. Whenever I'm hit by a strong and familiar odor, my first reaction will be to take a peek into my son's diaper to see if the bombs are dropped.

Finger Food noun. -Itsy bitsy chubby fingers that are self-served as a popular snack good for all occasions. "Luckily" for my son, he can always turn to his fingers when he runs out of things to chew on. He does less of it now than when he was an infant. Hopefully, his exclusive finger food will fall out of favor soon.

What do you think of my momfinitions? I'd love to read yours too!

Responsible Sports Parenting

Liberty Mutual has recently put together a Responsible Sports program, which provides resources for parents and coaches to help young athletes to reap the full benefits of playing sports. My son is still little, but I can envision him take part in such team sports as basketball, baseball or soccer when he is old enough.

Team sports can be beneficial to children's development both physically and psychologically. When the time is right, I'll definitely encourage my son to play on a school team. It'll be a great way to help him become more cooperative, confident, persevere and productive. As a parent, I'm obligated to reinforce the positive aspects of youth sports and help my child apply life lessons from sports on and off the field. I'll tell him what sportsmanship means and that cooperation and team work is valued more than winning the game. I'll be happy to host a house party to treat his fellow players. I'll also encourage him to be a leading member on the team. Even when he doesn't play well, I'll assure him that he has nothing to regret if he has done his best.

All my attempts to be a responsible sports parent are hypothetical at this stage. I'm sure some of you are experienced in parenting a young athlete. I'd love to hear your tips for helping your kid get the most out of playing sports.

If fact, if you share your tips in a blog post by July 7th, you could win an American Express gift card. See details here.