Rolling over your 401k

File this one under "lessons learned the hard way."

By the time you've been working for 5-10 years, you've probably changed jobs, been laid off, or moved to a different city and left your old job behind, Did you remember to roll over your 401k?

Back in April 2010, the Mr. left his old job behind, and his employer sent him information for how to roll over his 401k into a personal IRA. We filled out all the necessary paperwork, sent everything in, and assumed it was taken care of.

Fast-forward to December 2010, and he wants to check and see how his account is doing and set up online access. After a few looooong phone calls with the financial institution his IRA was with (who will remain nameless--lucky for them!) he discovered that when he enrolled, they never gave him any enrollment options.  We assumed that his money would roll over into the same or similar portfolio options as when he was at his employer. But no. His money had been sitting in a savings account for the last 8 months, instead of earning any money in stocks or mutual funds.

Basically, the stock market was going up, up, up for the last 8 months, and we made a whopping $1.47.

This commercial that I saw a couple nights ago totally sums up what happened to us:



(Please note that Charles Schwab is not the company I'm talking about in this post. This commercial just summed it up nicely. And I kind of like these half-animated people.)

We've since taken steps to move the money to another investment company, hopefully with better customer service.

Here are some tips to keep this from happening to you:

• Do your research. Find consumer reviews for investment companies. Try Bankrate. They have a lot of great information.
• Do your research, part two. This particular financial institution was in the middle of a merger, and that made it a nightmare to get answers to our questions. We got tossed around back and forth between the two companies just trying to talk to the right people.
• Make sure your new company is keeping you up to date about your investments, We never got a single statement during the 8 months we were with them.
• Figure out your options for changing to another investment company. Once you are at your new job, can you roll this money back into your new 401k? What if you are just disappointed with the service? Can you move it elsewhere? 

Bottom Line: It's your money, no matter how much it is. Make sure the company you choose is going to be your partner in growing your retirement nest egg!