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Home > Vanishing Money? Spendy Month, Still at Gym :(

Vanishing Money? Spendy Month, Still at Gym :(

January 30th, 2010 at 01:04 am

I hadn't checked my 401k from my former company for a couple months. Today, I logged in just to see how it was doing.

There was NO money in the account!

The last time I'd looked, I had over $4,000.00!!!

It was after business hours, so I sent an email asking what had happened to my money!! A small portion of it was employer matched money (maybe $400 or so) but the rest of it was money I'd put in - either through a rollover, or from my salary.

I've had a 401k from when I was teaching continue to be held for me, now for nearly 5 years. This makes me more than slightly perturbed.

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This has been one spendy month. Nearly $200 spent on gas (when a normal month *might* be $90). Then of course renting a truck to move, and paying rent (for Feb.) to two places (guess that actually would count towards Feb and not Jan.)

Next month will hopefully be better. I'll be making another tuition payment (I took the three payment plan - just to spread out the pain a little bit).

On Wednesday I left my tutoring bag at the school - in it was my iPhone charger along with a marker board and other supplies. So, I had to go to Walmart and get another phone charger - because I was going to be at the gym all day Thursday, and had to have my phone working.

Yesterday as I was leaving the gym to go to my Thursday tutoring session, I got a call from the headmaster of the school I'd interviewed at on Wednesday. Frown After I'd interviewed, apparently someone else with more experience working with 8th graders and who could do Reading Recovery applied - and they went with her.

Of course I thought I'd be starting Monday, so had already told E he needed to find someone else. Frown I'd also told a couple gym regulars ... So, had to call E and grovel. He gave me hours - but less, and instead of Tuesdays, Mondays.

So I did my tutoring session (without the markerboard) and headed home. And got royally lost - even with the gps on my phone. It was raining cats and dogs and super dark. I was nearly out of gas when I finally found a gas station.

I pulled off the freeway and filled up. Across the street was an AT&T store. My phone has been coming close to dying on me 3 or 4 times in the last week when I've been far away from any place to recharge it. So ... I went in and I bought one of those portable battery chargers ... $50. I also had the guy change my texting plan to the $15/1500 text plan (this last bill I had 400 texts over my plan limit of 200). Then ... I somewhat impetuously decided to sign up for the talking gps function. I figured I could try it out for a month and see if it was better than the free gps (no talking/no auto rerouting) option. $10/mo extra.

I tried out the new gps function today. I really really like it. Sometimes its a little slow on telling you turns, but if you miss a turn, it automatically reroutes. SO nice not having to mess with touching the screen to see the next turn. You also can be choosy about how you want them to make your route. SO nice.

I guess you could say I did a little bit of retail therapy. At least I don't do it very often, right? And these were all things I'd been thinking about and debating about pretty much since I first got my phone in September (I think)?

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After a nice week weather wise, it was really strange to go outside today and be freezing my tail end off again. I hope it goes away soon and we get back our low 50's!

10 Responses to “Vanishing Money? Spendy Month, Still at Gym :(”

  1. janH Says:
    1264813910

    I'm so sorry about the job! It was really raining a ton here, too. The dogs and I had to practially wade to the backyard. Hope you can find your money!

  2. frugaltexan75 Says:
    1264816574

    Thanks Jan.

  3. Single Guy Says:
    1264819302

    The most likely scenario for your money is:

    They moved to a new plan administrator and you just don't have the new URL/ID/Pwd.
    OR
    These plans are not required to keep your funds if they are under $5,000. They should send you a letter asking you what to do with the money (roll over / cash out). If they don't hear from you they may just cash it out and send you a check.

    Often both of the above happen in January (new year / new contracts) so you may want to be checking your mail for important info. Also, if you get sent a check, don't cash it, if you do you may not be able to roll it over to an IRA or other account without penalties. Instead have the destination's administrator give you instructions on how to handle it to your benefit.

  4. frugaltexan75 Says:
    1264819696

    Thanks, I bet it is a combo of your two scenarios. My other account from when I was teaching is well over 5k, so I didn't have that problem.

    I need to call my former company and make sure they have my current address, so if I am getting a check it'll come right to me!

    Can you rollover 401k money into a Roth? If not, maybe I can add it to my other account from when I was teaching ... hmm.

  5. davera Says:
    1264822082

    Yes, you can roll over a 401k into a Roth, but it will be taxed as ordinary income according to your tax bracket in the year of the conversion.

    I believe that you may be able to split the tax liability between 2010 and 2011, if it is advantageous to you. But you should definitely read up on the rules so you can determine if it makes sense financially, and so you don't get any nasty surprises with an unexpected tax bill.

    And definitely, as Single Guy said, do not cash any 401k checks, because that could immediately trigger penalties.

  6. Single Guy Says:
    1264822671

    OK, a few things. One: you can move a 401k to a Roth, but not directly. It has to be rolled into a regular IRA, and then converted into a Roth. Again, whoever is in charge where you are planning for the money to go should be able to help you with the paperwork.

    And two, if you do it this year, you can split the tax liability over 2011 & 2012 (not 2010 and 2011 as mentioned above). That means you don't pay tax until April 2012 and April 2013. The downside is... if the tax rate goes up (as it might) you would pay more in tax in the future than you would pay now. It is basically a wager on what will happen with the tax rates in a few years.

  7. frugaltexan75 Says:
    1264823145

    I definitely can't afford to pay any more taxes then I'm going to have to on self-employment ... I'll need to find a way to deal with this with no tax consequences until I actually have the money in hand (like, when I retire -Hah! like that'll ever happen) It'll be 2011 at least before I have a *real* job again where I might have a 401k benefit program (please God let it be so!)

  8. baselle Says:
    1264825449

    Wow, you are calm. If I saw a zero balance in an account I was expecting to have money in, I'd be in up on the ceiling hanging by my fingernails!

    If/when it comes: Vanguard. They were fantastic when I rolled over one of my retirement accounts into an IRA.

  9. Single Guy Says:
    1264869489

    I would say that if you can at all afford the extra taxes down the road, you should try to do the Roth conversion. Thats because if you are earning less when you pay taxes on the rollover, less taxes you will owe. Of course this is strictly an "if you can afford it" situation.

  10. Frugaltexan75 Says:
    1264900139

    Bassele,

    eh, calm? I wasn't too terribly calm when I first discovered it. Then I realized that nothing could be done till Monday, so needed to let go til then.

    Single Guy,
    I'll keep that in mind. Hopefully this will be my lowest income year since college, so maybe that'd be the way to go - if I get a scholarship, that'd free up some money.

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