Building a Target-Date Glide Path: How to De-Risk Your Child’s College Savings Year by Year

In 2008, the S&P 500 lost 36.55%, dividends included, according to annual return data kept by NYU finance professor Aswath Damodaran. For a family with a newborn, that was a painful year on paper and not much more, because the money had nearly two decades to recover. For a family with a high school senior, it could mean a smaller college fund at the very moment the first tuition bill arrived. Money invested in the index at the start of 2008 was still worth less than it started with at the end of 2011, four years later. That’s about how long a bachelor’s degree takes.

A glide path is the fix. It’s a schedule for moving a child’s savings out of stocks and into bonds and cash as the day you’ll spend the money gets closer, so a crash in the final stretch can’t do lasting damage. Most 529 plans offer portfolios that follow one automatically, but you can also build your own and de-risk by hand. This guide explains why the shift matters, lays out a sample glide path stage by stage, shows how to handle college’s four separate deadlines, tests the path against two very different bad years, and walks through how to make the moves in a 529 plan, a custodial account, and the accounts where a glide path doesn’t apply. It’s part of The GoodNest Guide to Investment Strategies & Portfolio Allocation, which covers how to divide a child’s money among stocks, bonds, and cash.

What a glide path is

The term comes from target-date funds, the all-in-one funds common in retirement plans. According to the SEC’s investor bulletin on target date funds, these funds typically shift from mostly stocks toward mostly bonds as their target date nears, and the timing of that shift is called the glide path. The bulletin sums up the reasoning: the longer you have until a goal, the more risk you can generally afford, because there’s more time to recover from a market drop, so as the goal gets closer you’ll typically want less risky investments.

The bulletin also describes two kinds of glide paths. A “to” glide path stops shifting at the target date, while a “through” glide path keeps shifting after it. College savings calls for something in between, as you’ll see below, because tuition is paid over several years rather than all at once.

529 plans offer their own versions, usually called age-based or target-enrollment portfolios. You pick the portfolio that matches your child’s age or expected start date, and the plan moves the money for you. Morningstar’s 2026 study of 529 savings plans found that the average glide path started with 92.0% in stocks in 2025, up from 89.5% in 2022, and held 18.3% in stocks at enrollment, down from 20.4%. Morningstar describes the average path as taking more stock risk early and shedding it faster later, which squeezes the de-risking into a shorter window near the end.

Building a glide path by hand means doing the same thing yourself: deciding how much belongs in stocks, bonds, and cash at each stage, and making the moves on a schedule. It takes a little more work, but you can match the path to your family’s actual dates and use it in accounts that don’t come with one, such as a custodial account.

Why the mix has to change as college gets closer

Stocks have been the strongest long-term growth engine for a child’s savings, and a poor place for money you’ll need soon. In Damodaran’s data, the S&P 500 lost money in 26 of the 98 calendar years from 1928 through 2025, about one year in four. A single bad year can be steep, and the climb back can take longer than parents expect:

• 2008. Money invested at the start of the year fell 36.55%. It was still worth less than it started with at the end of 2011 and didn’t finish a year back above its starting value until 2012.
• 2000. Money invested at the start of the year lost ground three years in a row and didn’t finish a year above its starting value until 2006.

For a newborn’s nest egg, stretches like those were survivable. Over long periods the record has been far kinder: in Damodaran’s data, stocks didn’t lose money in any of the 81 overlapping 18-year periods from 1928 through 2025. But a college fund doesn’t get 18 more years at the end. If the first tuition bill is due in two years, there may not be time to wait out a bad stretch, and the bill won’t shrink to match a smaller balance.

That’s the whole idea behind a glide path. Stocks don’t get riskier as your child grows; the money just has less time left to recover. The GoodNest Guide to Investment Strategies & Portfolio Allocation compares stocks with a mix of stocks and bonds over holding periods of different lengths.

A sample glide path, stage by stage

There’s no single correct glide path. Target date funds with the same date can follow very different ones, the SEC notes, and 529 plans vary just as widely. What follows is one moderate example built on a simple rule: the mix for any dollar depends on how many years remain until you’ll spend it.

• Stocks
• Bonds
• Cash

Hypothetical example for illustration, not a recommendation. Each bar is the target mix for money you plan to spend that many years from now. Ages show when freshman-year money is in each stage, assuming college starts at 18. As the date gets close, the bonds should be shorter-term, and cash means cash equivalents such as a savings account, a money market fund, Treasury bills, or a 529 plan’s most conservative option.

See the numbers

The sample glide path, stage by stage

Years until the money is spent	Stocks	Bonds	Cash
13 or more years awayAge 5 or younger	90%	10%	0%
10 to 12 years awayAges 6 to 8	80%	20%	0%
7 to 9 years awayAges 9 to 11	70%	30%	0%
5 to 6 years awayAges 12 to 13	55%	40%	5%
3 to 4 years awayAges 14 to 15	35%	45%	20%
2 years awayAge 16	20%	40%	40%
1 year or less awayAge 17 or older	0%	0%	100%

Here’s the thinking behind each stage:

• 13 or more years away: 90% stocks, 10% bonds. With more than a decade to go, growth matters most, and there’s time to recover from even a severe bear market. That’s close to the 92.0% that the average 529 glide path starts with. The small bond slice gives you something to rebalance from after a bad year.
• 7 to 12 years away: 80%, then 70%, in stocks. Trimming 10 percentage points at a time keeps each move small. Nothing dramatic happens in these years, and that’s the point.
• 5 to 6 years away: 55% stocks, 40% bonds, 5% cash. This is where the shift speeds up, in line with the common approach of starting to move each year’s money toward short-term bonds and cash about five years before it’s needed.
• 3 to 4 years away: 35% stocks, 45% bonds, 20% cash. A crash now would still sting, but it would hit only about a third of the money.
• 2 years away: 20% stocks, 40% bonds, 40% cash. Most of this money now sits in assets that don’t swing much from year to year.
• 1 year or less away: 100% cash. Next year’s money is out of the market entirely, in a savings account, a money market fund, Treasury bills, or your 529 plan’s most conservative option.

To find the stage for freshman-year money, subtract your child’s age from 18. A 12-year-old’s freshman-year money is six years away, so it belongs in the 5-to-6-year stage. Money for the later years of college runs one, two, and three years behind, which the next section covers.

Making it more or less aggressive

Saving for College’s guide to choosing 529 investments cautions that the risk in age-based portfolios can vary greatly and suggests matching it, from conservative to aggressive, to your own risk tolerance and goals. You can tune this sample the same way:

• More aggressive: hold 100% stocks while the money is 13 or more years away, or start each later stage a year or two later. This fits families who could cover a shortfall from income, loans, or other savings.
• More conservative: start each stage a year or two earlier, or cap stocks at 70%. This fits families for whom the fund is the main way college gets paid, or who know a big loss would tempt them to sell.
• Either way, keep the last year in cash. However you tune the early stages, money you’ll spend within about a year shouldn’t depend on the stock market.

Your own comfort with risk matters as much as the math. A path you abandon in a panic does more harm than a slightly cautious one you stick with, and The Psychology of Generational Wealth covers why staying the course is harder than it sounds.

College is four deadlines, not one

A glide path built around a single date treats college as one big bill, but a four-year degree comes with at least four years of bills. The money for senior year has three more years to work than the money for freshman year. Move the whole fund to cash for freshman year, and the senior-year money sits idle for years. Keep the whole fund invested for senior year, and the freshman-year money is exposed to a crash on the eve of the first bill.

The answer is to treat each year of college as its own goal on its own glide path, an approach sometimes called a ladder. Each slice moves through the same stages from the chart, one year apart, and the account as a whole holds the combined mix. Suppose your 529 is meant to cover four years at $12,000 each, close to the $11,950 average published tuition and fees for in-state students at public four-year colleges in 2025-26, according to the College Board’s Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2025. Here’s how the ladder would split the $48,000 on the first day of college:

Hypothetical example: $12,000 for each of four years, with each year’s money in the stage of the sample glide path that matches how far away it is. Money needed this year or next is all cash, money two years away is 20% stocks, 40% bonds, and 40% cash, and money three years away is 35% stocks, 45% bonds, and 20% cash. The whole account works out to 13.75% stocks, 21.25% bonds, and 65% cash.

On day one, the account holds about 14% in stocks, a bit below the 18.3% average that Morningstar found for 529 glide paths at enrollment in 2025, but far more in cash. That’s by design: the money for the next two years of bills can’t be touched by a market drop at all. Earlier on, the same ladder works out to about 54% in stocks when your child is 14 and about 36% at 16.

Each year after that, the slice that was two years away moves to cash, and the next one steps down a stage. If your child takes a gap year, plans a five-year program, or you expect to cover some bills from income, shift the dates to match. The same ladder works for any goal with a known date, such as a first car or a down payment, which Using Custodial Funds for Life Starts covers.

Plans also differ on what happens once college starts. According to Saving for College, some plans’ portfolios have kept a sizable share in stocks during the college years, an approach Fidelity and TIAA have used, while more commonly portfolios move toward cash and other fixed income to protect principal, as Utah and Virginia have done. A ladder lands in between: the money for the last years of school stays partly invested, and the money for the next bill doesn’t. The final stretch is also a good time to walk your teen through how the fund works, and High School (Ages 15-18) has ideas for that conversation.

What a glide path does in a bad year

The clearest way to see what a glide path buys you is to run a bad year through it. The table below applies the actual 2008 and 2022 returns from Damodaran’s data to each stage of the sample path, using the S&P 500 for stocks, 10-year Treasury bonds for bonds, and 3-month Treasury bills for cash.

Each figure applies one calendar year’s returns to the stage’s mix, rebalanced at the start of the year: the S&P 500 with dividends for stocks, 10-year Treasury bonds for bonds, and 3-month Treasury bills for cash, from Damodaran’s annual data. Real funds differ. In 2008, Baa-rated corporate bonds lost 3.44% while 10-year Treasury bonds gained 20.10%, and in 2022, shorter-term bonds were less exposed to rising rates than 10-year Treasury bonds. Past returns don’t predict future ones.

The two years tell different stories. In 2008, stocks crashed while Treasury bonds gained 20.10%, so each stage lost less than the one before it, and the last two came out ahead. In 2022, rising interest rates knocked down stocks and bonds together. Ten-year Treasury bonds lost 17.83%, their worst year in Damodaran’s records going back to 1928 and nearly as much as the 18.04% drop in stocks. The shift into bonds barely helped that year; the stages with the most cash held up best.

That’s why the final stretch of this sample leans on cash rather than long-term bonds, and why the bond side of any glide path should get shorter as the deadline approaches. Real 529 portfolios felt the 2022 squeeze. In a 2022 review of 529 plan trends, Morningstar found that the average portfolio for 18-year-olds in plans with gradual, progressive glide paths held 15% in stocks and at least 30% in bonds carrying interest rate or credit risk, and those portfolios lost an average of 6% to 7% in just the first four months of 2022.

On the first day of college, the four-year ladder from the previous section would have gained about 0.2% in a year like 2008 and lost about 4.9% in a year like 2022. A fund held entirely in stocks would have lost 36.55% and 18.04%.

What’s inside the safe part matters

A glide path is only as safe as the funds it moves into. In 2008, the Oppenheimer Core Bond fund, offered by at least four state 529 plans, lost 36% while the average intermediate-term bond fund lost about 5%, according to a PLANSPONSOR report citing Morningstar figures published by USA Today. Morningstar traced the losses to big bets on mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps. The Texas College Savings Plan’s age-based portfolio for beneficiaries 18 and older, half of it in the fund, fell 21% that year, and even Oregon’s ultra-conservative portfolio for families with children already in college fell 9%.

The lesson isn’t that bonds are dangerous. It’s that a fund’s label isn’t enough. Before you move money into a plan’s conservative or bond option, look at what it holds, how long its bonds run, and how it did in years like 2008 and 2022.

Bonds, cash, and the cost of playing it too safe

Bonds and cash both make a glide path steadier, but they do different jobs.

Bonds are the cushion for money a few years away. They usually pay more than cash, and in years like 2008, high-quality bonds rose while stocks fell. Their weak spot is interest rates. FINRA’s guide to bonds, interest rate changes, and duration explains that for every 1 percentage point change in interest rates, a bond’s price tends to move by about its duration in percent, in the opposite direction. So a bond fund with a duration of 10 would be expected to lose about 10% if rates rose by 1 percentage point, while by the same rule a short-term fund with a duration of 2 would lose about 2%. That’s why the bond side of a glide path should shift toward shorter-term bonds as the deadline nears.

Cash equivalents are for money you’ll spend within about a year. In Damodaran’s data, 3-month Treasury bills didn’t have a single losing year from 1928 through 2025. In most accounts, the closest thing is a money market fund, which the SEC’s guide to money market funds describes as relatively low risk compared with most other investments, though it isn’t guaranteed by the FDIC the way a bank account is. FDIC insurance covers bank deposits up to $250,000 per depositor, per FDIC-insured bank, per ownership category, according to the FDIC’s deposit insurance FAQs. Some 529 plans offer bank savings options, too: a Saving for College study found 29 plans in 21 states with FDIC-insured choices such as savings accounts and CDs as of 2023.

The cost of playing it too safe

Cash has its own risk: it barely grows. The SEC’s money market guide warns that low yields leave a risk of inflation outpacing your returns over time. Moving to cash too early has a real price. In Damodaran’s data, stocks finished ahead of Treasury bills in all 81 overlapping 18-year periods from 1928 through 2025. The median result was about $6.05 for every $1 in stocks, compared with about $1.82 for every $1 in Treasury bills.

So the goal isn’t to get as safe as possible as early as possible. It’s to stay in stocks while time is on your side and be out of them by the time it isn’t. The Role of Bonds and Fixed Income goes deeper on which kinds of bonds fit which jobs.

How to run a glide path by hand

Running your own glide path takes a few minutes, once or twice a year. Here’s the routine:

1. Write down each deadline and amount. List each year of college you’re saving for, or any other goal, with the year you’ll need the money and roughly how much. Setting Realistic Goals can help you size them.
2. Choose your stages. Start from the sample above and adjust it for your risk tolerance and your other resources.
3. Pick three building blocks in each account. You need a broad, low-cost stock index fund, a bond fund that gets shorter-term as the date approaches, and a cash option. Index Funds vs. Stock Picking for Minors covers the stock side.
4. Put it on the calendar. The SEC’s guide to asset allocation and diversification notes that some experts rebalance at regular intervals, such as every six or 12 months, and others when an asset class drifts past a set percentage. Your child’s birthday and the date six months later make easy reminders.
5. Steer new money first. The same guide notes that rebalancing can mean investing new money in other asset categories, not just selling. Sending contributions and gifts to whatever is below target moves you along the path without selling, and in a 529 it doesn’t use up one of your two yearly investment changes.
6. Move in small steps. Morningstar has cautioned against glide paths that cut stocks by 21 percentage points or more in one step, because big steps expose savers to market-timing risk. Its 2023 review of the 529 landscape found that by the end of 2022, close to 80% of plans used steps of 10 percentage points or less.
7. Write the plan down, and follow it in bad markets. The point is to make these decisions before a crash, not during one. Automating the Nest Egg shows how to put the contribution side on autopilot.

Gifts from family fit neatly into step five. When grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends want to give for a birthday, a holiday, or a graduation, GoodNest can collect their gifts, often alongside a small keepsake. Guests give from your child’s GoodNest page and send the money straight to you by Zelle, Venmo, or PayPal. GoodNest never holds or invests it, so you decide where each gift goes: into the stock fund while college is far off, or straight into the cash slice for next year’s tuition as the date gets close. The GoodNest Guide to Asking for Investments Instead of Toys has ideas for starting that conversation.

Making it work in each account

The routine is the same everywhere, but each account has its own rules for making the moves.

Plans and brokerages set their own procedures, so check how yours handles investment changes before you move money.

529 plans. Under Section 529(b)(4) of the tax code, you can direct how money already in a 529 is invested no more than twice per calendar year. Saving for College’s explainer on 529 investment changes adds that the limit applies only to changes the account owner directs, so the shifts a plan makes inside its own age-based portfolios don’t count against you, and that families who don’t use an age-based portfolio can lower their risk by hand with an investment change. New money is a separate matter: according to Saving for College’s guide to changing a 529 beneficiary, the limit applies to existing contributions, and you can always pick a different investment option for new ones. With two changes a year, a simple routine is one change on your child’s birthday and one six months later, with new money steered in between. The Complete Guide to 529 College Savings Plans covers the rest of the rules.

Custodial accounts (UTMA or UGMA). There’s no limit on how often you can change investments, but the money belongs to your child, so selling at a gain creates taxable income in your child’s name. Under the IRS’s Topic 409 on capital gains and losses, a gain on an investment held one year or less is taxed at ordinary income rates, while a gain on one held more than a year may be taxed at a lower rate. And under Revenue Procedure 2025-32, a child’s investment income above $2,700 in 2026 can be taxed at the parents’ rate. So in a custodial account, lean harder on new money and reinvested dividends to rebalance, sell in small pieces spread across tax years, and favor shares you’ve held more than a year. Navigating the 2026 Kiddie Tax Thresholds and Custodial Brokerage Accounts vs. Parent-Owned Taxable Accounts go deeper.

Custodial Roth IRAs. A Roth IRA is usually long-term money, meant for retirement decades away, so most families leave it invested rather than gliding it toward college. If you do plan to tap one for a specific goal, give that slice its own deadline like any other. The Custodial Roth IRA explains the withdrawal rules.

Trump Accounts. Under IRS Notice 2025-68, until January 1 of the year your child turns 18, a Trump Account can hold only mutual funds or ETFs that track an index of mostly U.S. companies, don’t use leverage, and charge no more than 0.1% a year. There’s no way to shift it toward bonds or cash before then. If you expect to use one for college, do your de-risking in your other accounts, so the household as a whole stays on the path. After that date, the account generally follows traditional IRA rules. The 530A Trump Account Explained has the details.

Whatever mix of accounts you have, judge the glide path by the total. The SEC’s target date bulletin makes the same point: consider your overall asset allocation, not just one fund. If the Trump Account is all stocks, the 529 can carry more of the bonds and cash.

Autopilot or do it yourself?

If the routine above sounds like more than you want to manage, an age-based or target-enrollment portfolio in a 529 does the same job automatically. Here’s how the two approaches compare:

• An age-based or target-enrollment portfolio moves the money for you, usually in steps of 10 percentage points or less, and its internal shifts don’t count toward your two yearly investment changes. The trade-off is that one path has to fit every family with the same target date, and plans differ widely in how much they hold in stocks and bonds near the end. As the SEC’s bulletin suggests, find out when the portfolio reaches its most conservative mix, and check what’s inside its bond and cash options.
• Your own glide path can follow your family’s actual dates, give each year of college its own deadline, and put the final years in cash instead of longer-term bonds. It also works in custodial accounts, which don’t come with ready-made glide paths. The trade-off is that you have to make the moves on schedule, including in years when the market is falling.

Many families combine the two, using a target-enrollment portfolio for most of the 529 and managing the cash for next year’s bills themselves. If you do, count the portfolio’s own bond and cash holdings when you figure your total mix, so you don’t end up more conservative than you meant to be.

Mistakes to avoid

• Getting safe too soon. Moving a young child’s fund to cash gives up years of growth. Stocks finished ahead of Treasury bills in all 81 overlapping 18-year periods in Damodaran’s data.
• Waiting too long. A fund that’s still mostly in stocks when the first bill is a year or two away is exposed to exactly the kind of year 2008 was.
• Bailing out after a crash. If a bad year hits mid-path, follow your schedule instead of selling at the bottom. Rebalancing after a drop can even mean buying stocks, which is hard to do but is how a glide path is meant to work.
• Assuming every bond fund is safe. Ten-year Treasury bonds fell almost as much as stocks in 2022, and a bond fund that took big risks lost 36% in 2008.
• Doubling up. Layering your own de-risking on top of an age-based portfolio that’s already de-risking can leave the account far more conservative than either plan intended.
• Looking at one account at a time. A Trump Account that must stay in stocks, a custodial account, and a 529 all add up to one household mix.
• Forgetting the plan once college starts. The money for junior and senior year is still on its own glide path, so keep moving each year’s money to cash a year ahead.

The bottom line

A glide path is a simple promise to yourself: stocks while time is on your side, bonds as the date approaches, and cash when the bill is about a year away. Whether a 529 portfolio runs it automatically or you run it by hand, the details that matter most come in the final five years. Start the shift around five years out, keep each move small, give each year of college its own deadline, favor cash and shorter-term bonds at the end, and make the changes on a schedule instead of in response to headlines.

None of it requires predicting the market. It takes a plan, a calendar, and the discipline to follow both. For how a glide path fits into the rest of your child’s portfolio, return to The GoodNest Guide to Investment Strategies & Portfolio Allocation.

Frequently asked questions

When should I start moving my child’s 529 out of stocks?

Gradually, and well before college. In this guide’s sample glide path, money that’s 13 or more years away holds 90% stocks, the shift picks up about five years before the money is needed, and each year’s money is entirely in cash equivalents once it’s a year or less away. For comparison, Morningstar found that the average 529 glide path held 18.3% in stocks at enrollment in 2025.

Should my child’s college fund be all cash by age 18?

Not usually. College is paid over several years, so the money for junior and senior year still has time to work. In this guide’s four-year example, the account holds about 14% in stocks, 21% in bonds, and 65% in cash on the first day of college, with the next two years of bills fully in cash.

How many times a year can I change my 529 investments?

Federal law lets you change how money already in a 529 is invested no more than twice per calendar year. You can choose a different investment option for new contributions at any time, and the shifts a plan makes inside its own age-based portfolios don’t count against your limit.

Are bonds safe for money I’ll need soon?

Not always. In 2022, 10-year Treasury bonds lost 17.83%, nearly as much as the 18.04% drop in stocks, because rising interest rates push bond prices down. Shorter-term bonds are much less sensitive to rate changes, and cash equivalents such as savings accounts, money market funds, and Treasury bills are a better home for money you’ll spend within about a year.

Can I use a glide path in a custodial account or a Trump Account?

In a custodial account, yes, and there’s no limit on how often you can change investments, but selling at a gain creates taxable income for your child, so rebalance with new money where you can. A Trump Account has to stay in low-cost U.S. stock index funds until January 1 of the year your child turns 18, so until then any de-risking has to happen in your other accounts.

Sources

• Aswath Damodaran, NYU Stern School of Business, “Historical Returns on Stocks, Bonds and Bills” (annual data from 1928 through 2025, updated January 5, 2026).
• U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Investor.gov, “Target Date Funds: Investor Bulletin” (March 25, 2025).
• Morningstar, “529 Plans Keep Getting Cheaper: 5 Key Takeaways From Our 2026 Study” (2026).
• Saving for College, “How Do I Select the Right Investment Option for My 529 Plan?” (updated October 14, 2025).
• College Board, “Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2025” (2025).
• Morningstar, “5 Charts Tracking Recent 529 Savings Plan Trends” (2022).
• Rebecca Moore, PLANSPONSOR, “College Savings Plans Hit Hard by Oppenheimer Fund Loss” (January 5, 2009).
• FINRA, “Brush Up on Bonds: Interest Rate Changes and Duration” (accessed October 2, 2026).
• U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Investor.gov, “Money Market Funds” (accessed October 2, 2026).
• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, “Deposit Insurance FAQs” (accessed October 2, 2026).
• Kathryn Flynn, Saving for College, “21 States Offer FDIC-Insured 529 Plan Options” (updated February 1, 2024).
• U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Investor.gov, “Asset Allocation and Diversification” (accessed October 2, 2026).
• Morningstar, “529 Plans: What’s Changed and What’s the Same?” (2023).
• Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, 26 U.S. Code § 529, Qualified tuition programs (accessed October 2, 2026).
• Kathryn Flynn, Saving for College, “How Many 529 Plan Investment Changes Can You Make Per Year?” (updated October 12, 2021).
• Kathryn Flynn, Saving for College, “Why You Should Change Your 529 Plan Beneficiary” (updated May 18, 2020).
• Internal Revenue Service, “Topic No. 409, Capital Gains and Losses” (accessed October 2, 2026).
• Internal Revenue Service, Revenue Procedure 2025-32, inflation adjustments for 2026 (2025).
• Internal Revenue Service, Notice 2025-68, guidance on Trump Accounts (December 2025).

This article is for general educational purposes only and is not investment, tax, or legal advice. The glide path shown is a hypothetical example, not a recommendation for any particular family. Historical returns come from the sources cited and don’t predict future results, and investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. Plan rules, fund holdings, and tax figures can change, so confirm the details with your plan, your fund company, or a qualified professional. GoodNest does not provide tax, legal, or investment advice and does not hold or invest funds.