Therefore keep a Roth IRA at the credit union for the kids to deposit their contributions until it builds up enough to tranfer to the Roth IRA at discount broker for another ETF purchase. This assumes there is no minimum balance needed at the credit union.


There is no minimum at the credit union, but it had occurred to me that the small deposits would be an issue. We were going to work around that by simply having them deposit weekly into their regular money market accounts, and then once a quarter or twice a year or at some interval, they could move the money into their Roth to have it there.

They'll earn some taxable interest, but it's so small and they don't make enough to pay taxes anyhow, so that's not a problem. It feels a little cleaner than maintaining 2 IRA's for them, and they get to the same result.

I am looking at the ETF at Scottrade idea. I do have another account at Scottrade, so I am familiar with them. I'll check it out, and see what the kids think.

If nothing else, they'll get a lesson in comparing returns, costs, and investment products, so that in itself is a good thing.