Updates and What's Going On

Well, Tropical Storm Fay has now completely left us.  We still had a few (very few) remaining storms come through yesterday, though we were able to get out of the house for the afternoon.  No damage so that's very good!  One down; ?? to go.

I still got the mail during the storm...yes, the poor mailwoman still had to deliver the mail!  I received a letter from my 401K plan saying that I have under the minimum $1000 and if I do not call by a certain date a check will be cut minus all the many fees and penalties they take away from you.  I know I received a check for all the funds to roll them over to my new Vanguard IRA.  Or at least that's what they told me!  So I took a look online and it's a whopping $3.13 for company stock!  $3.13!  It was probably some dividend or something that got applied after the check was cut.  So fine...cut me a check.  I'll probably get like $2.00 or something.  It's just not worth my time calling them to have it rolled over to my IRA.  Let the IRS get the 20% penalty or  $0.62...LOL.  I could always put $3.13 into my IRA and then get my $0.62 back at tax time.  Maybe.

I also received the explanation of benefits sheets you get from the insurance company for the boys' first visits to the new dentist.  I'll probably owe them in the $200 range.  Not bad considering they only charged me $50.70 for those appointments at the time.  We'll see what happens with that when the bill comes in.  

I've started updating the sidebar and progression bars.  It still needs some tweaking here and there.  My classes start tomorrow so my time will be limited until I get myself on a schedule.

401K Showing $0.00

My 401K is now showing a dollar amount of $0.00 down from the $21,089.89 it was showing before.

That's good news.

My check is now on it's way and soon I can open up my new Vanguard Target Retirement Fund IRA.  I can't wait to get it started!

Fidelity Rollover Process

I've finally started the process to transfer my 401K and pension to a Vanguard Target Retirement Fund IRA.  The first step was calling my current plan holder, Fidelity.

I have to start out by saying I am extremely impressed with Fidelity's customer service.  I spoke to three different people and they were all polite and very helpful.

The first person I spoke to wasn't the person I needed to speak with, but I messed up the logging in process at the beginning.  Goes to show you how many times I've actually called them--NONE!  He verified who I was and then very politely transferred me to the correct person.

The second person handled the 401K area only.  He very respectfully let me know that he would be happy to help, but that he didn't have access to the pension accounts.  We went through the whole process of making the request for a check made out to Vanguard so I could rollover my funds without IRS penalties.  He then transferred me to the pension department.

This last person was also very nice.  Apparently getting the pension transferred takes a bit longer along with additional paperwork.  It amazingly takes up to 90 days to get it closed out and that's assuming all the paperwork goes back and forth within a reasonable amount of time.  Because of the nature of a pension, my husband will also have to sign the form along with notarization.  I don't have a problem with that and it will be a good time to get the wills notarized too while we're at it.

So now the next step for me is to open the Vanguard account as soon as I receive the 401K check.  I can only hope the process will be as easy for my husband's old 401K with Merrill Lynch, but I have a feeling we won't be as lucky.  We've heard they have a tendency to make things difficult when you want to rollover funds.