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Finally!!!

May 18th, 2007 at 02:18 pm

Well, I peeked yesterday and my IRA transfer has not gone through. As you will recall, Fidelity was so difficult I just bought D&C through them, $75 fee and all, I was tired of being out of the market. Bruce Fund was much nicer and willing to send a request 3 times in a row (as opposed to DC's 1 whimpy failed attempt). But when it hadn't cleared yesterday during the day I started to fear the worst. This internal battle if I should just keep my money at Fidelity for a while for ease (though resigned to the fact I am p.o.ed and likely to move my money down the road) or if I should leave immediately in protest or what. But none of this matters now because I was updating Quicken this morning and a $4500 left my Fidelity account last night. Woohoo!!!!!!!!!

& so go my adventures in investing in the Bruce FUnd. VEry interesting little fund - had to invest through them directly I believe.

Now my conundrum is I have a Traditional IRA account at Dodge & Cox with NO money in it. I was considering contributing $1k just to keep it open. & when the smoke clears, and now that I know I can do a transfer, and I know how to now without getting rejected, LOL, eventually I would probably transfer from Fidelity too. But in the meantime I have a conundrum. Sure it is aggressive to move the money from the efund for that, but it's good. So we get $15k in our retirement this year instead of $14k, nothing wrong with that. But, all the same, my ability to contribute to a traditional IRA hedges on the outcome of the rest of the year. Plus I wanted to convert all my IRAs to ROTHs this year anyway. So can I make a traditional IRA now and then convert it? Maybe, I guess, but so many what-ifs about the year.

I think my best bet is to call D&C and see if I can convert the account to a ROTH before I send in money. Tell them my conundrum and my intentions and that I no longer want to transfer assets from Fidelity. We'll see.

Plus if I use that money it lessens the money I will have for taxes for a ROTH conversion. So I may be best off just closing the D&C account and forgetting about it this year. Why does it have to be so complicated?

I also got a BT offer in the mail yesterday from WAMU. They said they want to give me a $30k credit line. IT does sound interesting, I want to research it a bit more. Of course in fine print they say the average CL is $4k. So what are the odds? If I could get $10k+ I am so in though. Considering asking for $15k BT and see what I get - will research a bit first. This one would have a $75 transfer fee, but seems not too bad, since it would be interest-free for 1 year. Would make in the realm of $500. I don't mind $75. Plus interest on the $75 for 1 year - it couldn't be that bad could it? Of course maybe I should just ask for $30k - then it would really be worth it.

Oh, but back to retirement, it has been hovering around $53k. Not bad. If I can just keep my job another 7 months or so I get a $10k contribution this year as I fully vest. It's exciting as we near our first six figures in retirement! 2-3 years off, and depends on the market, but getting there!

2 Responses to “Finally!!!”

  1. littlemama Says:
    1179511148

    Stupid question here....What does it mean to be "vested?" Wink

  2. monkeymama Says:
    1179599962

    Vested - generally when you join a 401k plan or profit sharing plan, the company match vests over time. On average, 20% per year. So if your boss gives you $5k/year, match, only 20% would be yours the first year. They put $5k in your account, but if you quit after 1 year, you have to give 80% of that match back. The next year is 40% vest. then 60% vest, and so on. I am well, about 7 months away from my 6th year - which is when I go from 80% to 100% vested. Woohoo. I don't even include the unvested contributions in my tallies/net worth schedule. Though the neat thing is I do earn interest/dividends off the unvested portion in the meantime. I think.

    Another way to just make it all so complicated I guess.

    Probably the only reason I really understand this is when I went to work for a CPA firm out of school my very first job was to audit a 401k plan. All that stuff I think could have been very greek to me otherwise. Most of it still is really - LOL.

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