Target-date funds & Lake Montebello restrooms: Consumer Sundays
There's more to picking a target-date fund than knowing when you'd like to retire, advises Eileen Ambrose in her Sunday personal finance column.
Target-date retirement funds are meant to help people too busy to select their own investments. In a nutshell, most guidelines suggest putting your retirement money into more volatile options like stocks early on and then gradually moving into more conservative alternatives such as bonds as you get older.
With target-date funds, the fund managers make that shift automatically, so investors have fewer decisions to make.
However, Eileen points out that you still have to monitor where that money is going. Look at the prospectus to ensure the fund's investment strategy matches your own risk tolerance, whether you're pretty conservative or if you enjoy the thrill of the market's ups and downs.
Also, don't overlook the fees charged by these funds. Remember: there's a price for convenience, which is valuable. By investing in a target-date fund, you're paying for a fund manager's expertise.
... a peeing problem, to be more specific. 
Hamilton resident Bruce Paris pointed out that although hundreds of people run, walk and bike at Lake Montebello, there are no public restroom facilities there. He wanted to know why they were not included in the repairs to the path that were completed two years ago.
Watchdog called Baltimore's Department of Public Works and learned that there are no plans for public restrooms or even porta-potties because the facility is a water treatment area. Porta-potties are magnets for vandalism and the water at Lake Montebello will someday be used for drinking, said DPW spokesman Kurt Kocher.
To help those Lake Montebello patrons who thought their only option was a tree, DPW did promise to post signs directing people to the nearest restrooms, which are in Herring Run Park.
To get there, leave Lake Montebello at Lake Montebello Terrace, walk south on Harford Road and get on the Herring Run trail at the entrance to the playing fields, off Chesterfield Road. Walk north on the trail, under the Harford Road bridge, and a comfort station should be on your right.
Those restrooms have limited hours, but three porta-potties are available at all times of the day.
(photo: Doug Kapustin/Baltimore Sun)
Categories: Investments, Personal finance, Retirement, Watchdog
