Fucking hell 7%
IIRC the bank guy selling you on that fund gets a commission so of course they push it relentlessly to take advantage of people who aren’t aware
LOL American Funds are the default placement for lol Edward Jones because of course they are.
It’s incomprehensible how much money boomers are wasting on dogshit rip-off financial products. That stupid fund doesn’t hold a candle to annuities and while/universal life insurance.
My employer uses American funds 
Last I looked the money market offering has a .43 expense ratio which outstrips it’s .41 guaranteed return.
lol
Looks like my HSA custodian made an error and it’s turning into an administrative nightmare. Looking for advice.
Timeline:
-From whenever through 2021: Had an HSA with an old employer.
-Late 2021: Moved jobs, new employer sets up new HSA. Same custodian, different account #.
-Custodian requires minimum cash balance and I want to be max invested, so 2 accounts is 2x cash requirements, 2x fees, and is obviously just dumb and unnecessary, so…
-Feb 2022: Transferred everything to the new account and closed the old account. Investments were transferred without liquidating. I have an email confirmation showing the old account was closed. All assets made it to the new account.
-March 2022: New account statement shows beginning and ending (3/31) investment balance with the expected amount. X units in a fund with a value of Y where X and Y clearly contain the years of old money and not just the ~6 months of direct contributions from the new job.
-April 2022: New account statement shows beginning investment balance on 4/1 of $0. No transactions or explanation as to where the money went. For some reason it’s back in the old (closed) account.
I can still view both accounts online. The old account is showing $0 on the cash side but the X units from above on the investment side (plus a small amount for dividend reinvestments that have still been processing). That’s the only reason I know where the money went. There are no entries on the transaction page explaining the move and it hasn’t published a statement since the account closure.
New account transaction page shows the cash transfer from February (from the old account’s minimum required cash balance) but no investment activity to or from the old account. The published statements show the investments arriving in February and disappearing between 3/31 and 4/1 as noted above.
I’ve talked to 3 low level customer service reps who are seeing both accounts and broadly understanding the issue but failing to grasp the significance. One of them disconnected on me, another suggested reopening the old account, liquidating the investments, then transferring cash because they couldn’t directly transfer investments from a closed account (doesn’t make sense for several reasons, I know). The third wanted to send me some form to fill out which sounded like a standard transfer request. I tried to get a supervisor after that but none of them wanted to take my call.
So my concerns are wtf happens with my balance as account services phase out due to the closure. I’m keeping my HSA solely as an investment vehicle but if I actually needed it for health expenses I’d be super upset about having 90% of my funds locked away in a closed account. And just out of principle I’m upset about my money getting moved around without my knowledge or authorization. Is there anyone to contact to get the appropriate level of attention on this? Keep trying for a supervisor? CFPB or similar? Some kind of lawyer? I’ve already spent a couple hours trying to fix this and I’m frustrated.
Is the custodian Optum by chance? I had a pretty similar issue a while back with them. I can try to dig up my notes on what I did to fix it.
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It is. Notes would be good, thanks. I sent them an email pointing out that there’s $X that disappeared from my account between the two statements and I only want to discuss it with someone who can fix it. Hoping that gets someone’s attention but I’m not confident.
retiring with $3 million is meh, but I’d like to hear more about how he got 5 years younger
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Inherited $200 million from his parents and spent $197 million on a time machine.
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Good news. Now you can shield $26 million from the estate tax.
But what am I going to do with all my money in excess of $26 million? It’s TYRANNY!
Retiring with 3 million is meh?
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That was a bit tongue-in-cheek. I wouldn’t choose to retire at that age with $3 million, but it’s certainly enough to live off of.
Still seems wild to me. Almost everyone on the planet would be just fine retiring with 3 million at 36
Didn’t read the story but if you’re a normal working person with a high income who got to 3 million at that age you’re probably living an expensive lifestyle and you’re going to need quite a bit more than that to retire in your mid 30s. Not easy for most people to go from spending $150k a year or whatever to $50k a year.
Yes, this is why most retirement planning (including things like tax policy that supports saving for retirement) is based on the idea of maintaining a similar lifestyle after retirement as one had before retirement. Only a small minority of people have a FIRE approach of living a low cost lifestyle before and after retirement.
The demise of pensions is a huge net negative for employees. It’s pretty fucking annoying I have to find a way to get to 40x expenses to retire.
Related: if I were nearing retirement I’d be pretty tempted to buy a SPIA right now.
This is the big silver lining on increasing long term interest rates, buying a “pension” is getting a lot cheaper.
You probably also don’t need 40x expenses, but everything is personal and depends. One thing people tend to underestimate is how much lower taxes are in retirement, if you spend your whole working life with something like a 25% marginal tax rate it can be a shock to see how low that tax rate goes in retirement and how much more of your income stays in your pocket. Obviously saving for retirement is a big challenge but I have found that most people who do the basics (save some reasonable percentage of pay and invest in sensible low cost index funds) end up in a better position than they think when they actually start converting their accumulated assets into income in retirement.
True on all counts. Even 40x makes me a bit nervous. I’d be fine with that at age 60, but in 40s it seems a bit dicey. Yes, I’m a paranoid boglehead at heart.
Thoughts on the optimal way to invest mortgage sinking fund money with intended payoff in 2029? In the past, I’ve been paying extra, but now risk free rates > mortgage rate.