Vanguard, Water, and 2-Week End

Lots of different things to discuss this time.

Vanguard got my check and promptly applied it to my account.  I've already made an additional $0.01 too!  :-)

This morning I woke up, put water in my kettle to make tea, and started a load of laundry.  The washer was almost filled up and the water stopped!  Apparently someone broke the main water line--I'm not going to mention who, but "idiot who was doing construction on new 4-lane road near our house" is probably the most likely candidate!  

Because of this, I brought the boys out for lunch at McDonald's.  I did have a coupon for a free kid's meal from when my youngest went to a birthday party.  Free is always nice!  Since we were already out I filled up the car ($41.82!  But it has been 18 days since my last fill-up!) and stopped by Walmart for a few needed supplies and two 2-drawer filing cabinets to complete the first desk in my office makeover.

Again another 2-weeks has passed!  I had $19 left, which I split among the "savings funds", though some just replaced what I transferred back due to the stupid Dish Network bill.

All the bills have now been paid for the rest of the month:

$442.60 transferred to savings for 1/2 July mortgage payment

$36.75 paid for my car registration--yep it's my birthday this month!

$69.60 bill set up to be paid 6/20 for water/sewer/garbage with city

$139.14 bill set up to be paid 6/23 for electric

$62.22 bill set up to be paid 6/23 for landline and internet (we would love to get rid of the landline, but it would take a lot of shuffling around other services to do it--so for now we are keeping it)

I'm now just waiting for June to be over to update my debt, net worth and move into July with 3 paychecks!

The Check is in the Mail!

I sent my 401K rollover check to Vanguard via overnight delivery.  They should receive it by 12PM tomorrow.

401K Check and Vanguard Account

I received the check for my 401K today.  Grrrr....it was a little more than $319 less than it should have been, but that's how the markets are.  Apparently they cut the check after a decrease.  It was still $20,770.01 so that's not too bad and I do still have the pension to rollover.

With check in hand I was finally able to sign up for a Vanguard account.  I did that this afternoon along with online access.  Now I just have to send some signed documents and the check to them.  I think tomorrow morning I'll overnight it with a return receipt.  

Cross fingers that I've filled out exactly what they need and the check gets applied correctly.

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.

Decision made--I think????

I've decided to go with Vanguard and their Target Retirement 2035 fund.  Or at least I believe I am ready to go with it.  It's not that I haven't done my research on it.  I've looked at several companies comparing the fees, the holdings, and the performances.  I've checked out the online prospectuses.  I'm really comfortable with what I see with Vanguard.  However, I'm not sure I'm ready to deal with getting everything rolled over.  It can be such a pain.  If it was just the 401K, then maybe it would only be a small problem, but I have the Pension too.  

Plus the accounts have been doing good lately, though I'll admit I haven't actually looked to see how my current accounts stack up to the Vanguard account earnings wise.  So maybe what I should do is see which is doing better in say the last year and go from there.  If my current plan is better than Vanguard, then I'll stay.  And if Vanguard is better than my current plan, then I'll take the time and problems and roll them over. 

Back to the drawing board!