Retirement Funds

My experience consolidating my employer retirement accounts has been interesting so far. I have two accounts- one is teacher retirement and the other is a standard 401(k). I want to pull all the money from each and put all funds into a new IRA.

I began by setting up a new IRA account. The very helpful lady at Fidelity asked how much is in my 401(k). Then she asked how much is in my teacher retirement. I said 800.

IRA Lady: Eight hundred thousand?
Me: Um, no. Eight hundred dollars.

(Does anyone have $800,000 in their teacher retirement account?)

I was half time at the library for one year. I left the money at TRS when I left, because it earned a guaranteed 5% annually, which was great compared to some other cash investments. Last year the guaranteed rate went down to 2%. Just the other day they sent me notification that I would no longer be receiving any earnings on the money, because it has been five years since I worked for an entity that uses TRS. Perfect timing!

I was able to set up an IRA online. The Fidelity representative stayed on the phone and guided me through the process, in case I had any questions. If your employer retirement is at one of the companies listed on the site, Fidelity can process the entire thing and you don't have to contact the current holder at all. That was the case when Jeff left his last job. Super cool. Sadly, neither of my accounts was on the list, so I had to contact them myself.

Unfortunately, you can't roll over teacher retirement online via the TRS website. You have to download a paper form, which has to be notarized and mailed in via snail mail. If you are rolling your money over into an IRA instead of cashing out, they tell you on the website that there is another paper form required, but they won't give you that form to mail in with the first form. You have to send the first one, and then they will mail you the second one, which has to be signed by you AND the financial institution where your money is being sent. Then you mail the second one back to TRS for your money to be transferred.

Government at work, y'all. I can't even imagine what the reasoning behind this would be. It should all be on one form. If only there were a way to make it more labor intensive and prone to error...

Next up was my 401(k), through a large financial corporation competitive with Fidelity. I would have left it there, but our other accounts are at Fidelity, so it makes sense to move it. For that one, I just called the company and they enabled a link on the website for me to submit my information. They will handle the rest from here. Easy!