Need help with keeping track of all these retirement accounts
May 18, 2011 2:26 PM   Subscribe

My financial situation is far from complex but like a lot of people I have (mostly) retirement investments scattered around in many different accounts. Some are IRAs, 401(k)s, 503(b)s, etc. for myself and spouse. Most of these still send me paper statements on a monthly or quarterly basis. Some of the statements are very confusing because they require things like "core" accounts, obscure funds that are provided through work, accounting schemes that seem to me overly complex, and just plain complicated statements. FWIW, I am good with numbers, science, and computers, but I still find personal finance frustrating and tiring.

What I need is some method to keep all of these accounts straight. My goal is to stay up to date on their value, track the input and outgo (?) so that I know (for instance) my employer is contributing correctly and the various funds are tracking them correctly, and evaluate the performance of these various investments so I know they are appropriate. In the past I have tried tracking some of these investments with spreadsheets that I have made, but I frequently fail to keep them up to date.

What methods can you suggest to help me with my problem? Software solutions seem like a good possibility, but I am a little wary of security.
posted by Rad_Boy to Work & Money (8 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Can you consolidate any of them? I keep my retirement money with whoever my employer uses, then when I move on I roll the account into one with my credit union.
posted by brilliantine at 2:29 PM on May 18, 2011


Is there any reason you aren't consolidating them into a single IRA, if they're from companies you don't work for any longer? That's the usual way. Many retirement plans even force you out X number of months/years after you've quit.
posted by small_ruminant at 2:30 PM on May 18, 2011


hah. What brilliantine said.
posted by small_ruminant at 2:31 PM on May 18, 2011


You might consider a meeting with a financial advisor (fee-based) to come up with a plan for how to best roll-over and/or consolidate (if that's possible). As for tracking, I find Mint.com to be an awesome solution to this problem, but you may not be comfortable with putting your account information into an online service like this.
posted by JenMarie at 3:19 PM on May 18, 2011


Response by poster: Well, I've got one from Fidelity that is a consolidation, then there's my wife's Fidelity. Each of us has one from our separate jobs, then my wife has another from a former employer which she can't really dispose of (it's a funky annuity). So there's five. So the same question remains.
posted by Rad_Boy at 3:20 PM on May 18, 2011


The jobs ones you're stuck with, in my experience. I just use an Excel spreadsheet and haven't tried mint.com for this sort of thing.

Call Fidelity and ask if they'll "household" your and your wife's accounts- at least you'll get a summary page and the statements all in one envelope.

Double check on the funky annuity and find out when your wife can transition out of it. Some of them you have to get out of incrementally (TIAA Cref has one of those) so often (but not always!) the sooner she starts the better, if she's in that category. It's probably worth paying an hourly financial planner for an hour or two to get an overview, and to make sure your overall allocation actually fits your goals, risk tolerances, and time lines .
posted by small_ruminant at 3:57 PM on May 18, 2011


You can always check out the dreaded Quicken. Its what I use. Its super complicated, but it does a hell of a job of keeping track of every account you have. It'll log into the various "online banking" type sites you have for your various investments, and bring all that info back to one summary page.

The learning curve is...existent, but once you get it down its very easy to use. It can do as much or as little as you ask it. If you just want it to keep track of these investments, it'll do that; if you want it tracking these plus all your bank accounts and credit card statements, it'll do that too.

I agree with what others are saying about consolidating. But if you cant and just need concise info, its something to consider.
posted by Arbitrage1 at 7:20 PM on May 18, 2011


I use GNUCash to keep track of my Roth IRA, my 403b, and KPERS pension. It keeps track of the underlying components and number of shares. I haven't looked into it, but it might be able to import transactions online. No promises there. You can construct 'scheduled transactions' which will create new transactions according to what the contribution plans should be, and then reconcile that with statements when they arrive.

For tracking net worth, I set up a scheduled software task to update prices daily, and can run a report to see that change over time. It's very gratifying to see the transition from negative to positive! I also make a habit of doing a comprehensive review at the end of every month, where I check up on all the random balances I've accrued: cellular, web hosting, amazon, discover cashback, and a few random video game trading sites I use.

Evaluating performance is more difficult. You can compare to benchmarks like S&P 500, but the best analysis also includes risk and volatility. Pretty sure you can't get that with GNUCash.
posted by pwnguin at 9:52 PM on May 18, 2011


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