My parents, sister and I drove up to Greeley to see oldest niece yesterday. It was snowing and nasty here when we left, but cleared up once we got close to Denver. My sister was in a nasty mood so it wasn't much fun at the beginning.

She wanted me to review her investments in her 401K, IRA's and the girls college money. She has been paying someone 2% to manage this for her, but has decided that's a waste of money, which I've been telling her for 4 years. Anyways, I went thru everything and was shocked at how little she's saved in retirement funds when she makes really good money and has for 30 years. There is no way she'll ever be able to retire at this rate. And that included the matching funds from all her employers, truly pathetic. I told her she really needs to up her contributions.

I broke down the different ways I would invest the money if it was me. The girls college has to be more liquid, but she has enough for 2 years, so I suggested I-bonds, short-term bond funds and a GNMA fund for that money. For her retirement money I told her she needed to go for growth since she has only 15 years to retirement and very little money. I put 50% in a S&P Index value fund. 25% in a small cap index fund, 15% in a total international index fund and 10% in a GNMA fund. I hope she follows thru. She's very risk adverse, but you can't make any money on CDs or money-market funds right now.

Once we got to Greeley the weather was fine. I brought 4 large boxes of stuff to niece and she was very excited. She kept saying "oh look at this", "I can really use this", "I've needed some of this". So I was happy that she was happy. My mom made cookies and brownies for her and her roomates. She already sent her valentines in the mail - chocolates and $50. My sister gave her an AMEX card. So she's set for while.

I helped her do her taxes, which didn't take long. Unfortunately this is the first year she made enough money that she doesn't get all her taxes back. She will get $50 between federal and state.

Dad took all of us to lunch at Chili's. We left around 3:30 and what should have been a 2 hour drive took us 4 hours. There was a wreck on I-25 in Denver and we were stuck on the highway for 2 hours. My sister was not happy, but we don't know Denver well enough to get off the freeway and find our way back, plus we were in the far lane and getting over would have taken a lot of effort. We finally made it but by the time we got back home it was snowing and foggy again. We dropped sister off and mom and dad and I went to Village Inn for supper. It was almost 8 and none of us wanted to go home and cook or clean.

I finished reading the library book V is for Vengence by Sue Grafton. Mystery - ok. Not as good as the others in the series.