As we throw open our doors to the warming air of spring, many of us start the annual process of giving our homes a thorough scrub. We just don't get around to the deep cleaning throughout the year, so the spring ritual helps keep our homes in order. If only most investors followed the same practice.

Most of us have a financial home in disarray. Think of the dilapidated, stately house that George Bailey renovated in "It's a Wonderful Life" -- our portfolios are full of promise and have good bones built by careful saving, but are nonetheless woefully neglected.

Fortunately mutual funds and Treasury bonds do not fall into disrepair as physical structures do. But although the cracks may not be visible, investment portfolios degrade over time without mindful maintenance.

In fact, your disorganized portfolio may be costing you thousands in fees, taxes and gains a year. So how do you know whether your investments require a good spring cleaning? If you haven't looked at your entire portfolio in the last year or two, that's a good sign. Here are some other symptoms of your investments needing care.

Multiple 401(k) and pension plans. Here in Boulder and Broomfield counties, we have a tech-driven economy with employers such as Level 3, Ball, Amgen, Oracle and IBM. Those who have worked in tech understand that people do not tend to stay with one company as long as they would in more traditional industries.

Often couples come in with a portfolio that reads like their resumes. I call it an equal opportunity portfolio. Every ex-employer is represented with their pension plans leaving tracks long after employees have handed in their laptops.

So what's wrong with holding on to old pension plans? First the logistics of rebalancing your overall portfolio across several accounts can be daunting. Also, holding investments in multiple plans means that you must stay abreast of the new investment options introduced with each plan.

In addition, most plans have high expenses that can total 3 percent annually of your investment balance. Finally, if you're thinking about going through a Roth conversion, it may be quicker to do so from a traditional IRA rather than a 401(k) plan.

Of course there are some cases in which keeping a pension plan alive makes sense. You may have an outstanding loan against a 401(k) balance. Also some pension plans, such as the federal government's Thrift Savings Program, have outstanding investment options that are not generally available. These plans, unfortunately, are in the very small minority as most are loaded with high fees.

Multiple brokerage accounts. Another sign of a disordered financial house is holding investments with multiple brokerage firms. You may have good reasons for having accounts with Schwab, Merrill, and Morgan Stanley, but most likely it's not the result of a coherent investment strategy.

Fortunately you can clean up your portfolio usually without significant tax consequences. Your 401(k) and 403(b) retirement accounts can usually be rolled over to an IRA. Even with taxable and retirement investment accounts you can consolidate without cutting a big check to the IRS. Without liquidating your investments, you can usually make an in-kind transfer in which your investments are directly moved from one account to another.

Of course if you have taxable investments in the red, selling them could generate some useful tax losses and then the proceeds can be used to fund a new account.

So do yourself a favor this spring and take stock of all of your investments accounts. It may be that the results of decisions made over a lifetime of investing are no longer help to keep your financial house in top shape.

Dave Gardner is a certified financial planner with a practice in Boulder. He can be reached through his Web site at yellowstonefinancial.com.