Personal Investments • Need Help with Aging Parents

Thank you all for your timely responses. I feel more confident in my ability to help them based on the feedback above. Here are a couple of additional pieces of data.

They do not (and will not) have pension payments.

Their current income is roughly $3,500 per month. This is a combination of my dad's social security and my mom's social security disability. They're able to cover their expenses currently so they do not need to withdraw their funds until my dad passes away.

Their monthly expenses include a significant health insurance premium that will go away when my mom transitions to medicare. This will give them a little buffer for their living expenses.

When my father passes away my mom's social security will be the sole source of income at roughly $1,800 per month. We estimate her monthly expenses at that point will be around $2,500. With a buffer, we're probably looking at drawing $800-$1,000 monthly.

Here are the initial actions I will recommend for them (your feedback is greatly appreciated):

1.) Renew my mom's IRA CD for 5 months at 3.44%.
2.) Open an account at Vanguard (where I hold my IRA) or Fidelity (my work 401k) to roll my mom's 401k into. Looking at a money market account initially (VMRXX) while we determine the actual breakdown for investments.
3.) Use my dad's CD to pay off the roof loan at 9.9%. Move remaining 19k to Vanguard/Fidelity (should this also go into VMRXX?).
4.) Move emergency fund to a high-yield savings account (Ally 3.6%)

This gives me time to come up with a more specific investment plan for their situation. Given the updated information- would the investment recommendations below still be the most prudent options (e.g., bonds to minimize risk)? I'll have some more time to figure this out once the initial moves are made but specific recommendations are definitely welcome. Anything else I'm missing?

Thanks again for the quick replies!

-HD

Statistics: Posted by gavinsiu — Fri Apr 18, 2025 7:01 am — Replies 9 — Views 1741