What do I do after opening a child custodial account?
Opening a custodial account for an infant leaves beginner investors completely lost on the next steps, such as whether they need to manually select stocks or how to buy funds within the app. Because they lack investing experience, they do not know how to proceed after setting up the account and adding monthly payments.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Asking online forums for specific index fund ticker recommendations and step-by-step app instructions
- 2Using paper trading or stock market simulation games with fake money
- 3Setting up an account for yourself and letting them manage it
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Hey, I’m super new to anything investment related so looking for advice. I just opened a UTMA account for my 7 month old and I have no clue what to do now.”source ↗
“I’ve added a monthly payment, but do I have to select which stocks to invest in? How do I go about this?”source ↗
“Thanks - can I do this on the app? Sorry, total newbie”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2Which debit card should I get for my kids?
- 4Where to invest inheritance money for my kids?
- 6How to find a simple all-in-one bank and brokerage
- 2What should I do with inherited stock?
- 8Where to invest money for a child when college plans are uncertain
- 2How to open a business bank account for a home-based business