How did I lose a third of my 401k instantly? - Wondering if anyone has seen something like this before. An old 401k I had switched to fidelity - a balance of 54k had been rolled over. A few months later I go to check on the balance and see ... See More that I’m now at 36k. I see a few stocks/ETFs where as a line item with exchange in, exchange out, and balance forward values. Some appear to balance out but some stocks the value just evaporates as a value of 0 in balance forward. Are these unaccounted for holdings still in the old 401k and could not be transferred into the fidelity account? As far as I’m aware there is no way to get to the old 401k as it’s even rolled over

Edit: I did not choose to roll the account over. My company stopped using alight and rolled everyone over to fidelity

Fidelity zeroed out my 401k without my permission and now they can't find the money - _Updated TLDR_
General reddit consensus is that unbeknownst to me my crappy little 401k got rolled up in a batch forced distribution scenario. For being under 5k. Irony is that my last statement (July) it ... See More was over 5k. (Yes yes it was a small account. I have others.) Then the 401k goes to nil. If it was subject to forced withdrawal, it was probably sent to a place called Millennium Trust, which the internet reports is a nightmare. Fidelity admits they sent me no notice that any distribution or withdrawal would happen or had been triggered to happen (and research finds they are legally obligated to do so, they can’t just tuck it in a contract) they also didn’t know where the money was actually sent but are investigating. I have many questions. And will be speaking to Fidelity again Monday! Have a great weekend all.

TL;DR to avoid some confusion. According to Fidelity, my past employer's retirement program w/ Fidelity is not subject a minimum balance clauses, which I see are common for many kinds of retirement accounts. But because this was not the case for my employer's relationship w/ Fidelity, there are no processes in place for forced minimum balance xfers. As a result I was not informed—no letters, notices, nor a way to direct the distribution perhaps to an account of my choosing. The other result is they don't know where they transferred the money. They did not send me a check. I'll note that my account was under the theoretical cutoff for a very short amount of time due to market fluctuations. Not long enough, according to the Fidelity rep from my employer, to trigger this.
\--


I got a letter from Fidelity yesterday that my entire 401k balance from my last employer had been withdrawn. I had not initiated a rollover yet, haven't even done paperwork. I left the job 1 year ago and was waiting for my 401k at my new employer to kick in.

Anyway, the letter freaked me out because I did \*not\* initiate a distribution and I certainly got no correspondence about any such thing potentially happening.

Called Fidelity, they were very squirmy, but the facts they relayed are:

1. They applied a minimum balance clause to my retirement account, which they weren't supposed to, and as a result they withdrew the funds and sent them... somewhere. They don't know where. My other retirement account, which has a higher balance, is safe. They say.
2. Because the minimum (5k) clause wasn't supposed to be applied, but they did it anyway, they never sent any correspondence or alerts about an impending distribution. Just the notice it'd been done after they did it.++
1. \++Note here since folks are asking -- I was told by Fidelity that my account, being part of the retirement system for a large university, was supposed to be exempt from this process. Any other accounts at this university would also be exempt -- not just mine.
3. They do not know where my money is. They have opened an "investigation." They guess (!) it is probably en route to an IRA... somewhere. They don't know where, they don't know how, nothing.
4. They suggested that I am not the only one this happened to, due to this minimum balance clause being inappropriately applied. "Uh, yeah this is an issue we need to fix..."

Posting as a warning to folks with less than 5k in their Fidelity retirement accounts to just give them an gander and seeing if anyone else has had this happen to them recently. It's possible some types of retirement accounts do have this clause and the appropriate processes, but they told me mine wasn't supposed to.

Hooray!

Help me understand my mortgage - I purchased my home in April 2020, purchase price was $150,000 and we put $4,500 down. Our loan was for the remaining $145,500 at 3.25%

Our current balance is $193,139.98 and the interest rate shown in our banking app is at 13.25%

Does that sound right? ... See More It seems way too high of a balance owed only 3 years later if we are supposed to be at 3.25%. Over the life of the loan we should only pay $233,000 total including interest, so how does it jump up over $48k in 3 years already? All of our payments have been made on time with a couple dollars added to it.

I'm not sure if I am misunderstanding something or if we need to refinance, but the amount owed doesn't sound right to me.


Update: Somebody did mess up and I was being charged 13.25% interest when it was only supposed to be 3.25%. I contacted the mortgage company and they were able to fix it within two days.

Bought from Amazon, they accidentally charged me 6 times for 1 item, my bank declined 5 of the charges and now Amazon has sent me to collections for those 5 extra charges. What do I do? - So, i bought a (one) kitchen knife off Amazon and they sent it ... See More to me no problem. But i noticed they charged me 6 times for the purchase. I called them multiple times and each time they told me they couldn’t see 6 charges, only one charge, and to take it up with my bank. I did and my bank reversed 5 of the charges.
Now Amazon has sent me to collections 5 times for the declined charges.
What should I do?
For info, i am in the US.

Edit: I emailed jeff@amazon.com and it got booted back to me as being an un-monitored email. But cs-reply@amazon.com did reply back with an auto received email. Next step is BBB, will report back how that goes for anybody with this issue in the future.
I’ll also attempt to wade through customer service in the app again to see if I can get that to work during business hours on Monday.

What things should I wrap up before I get fired on Friday? - I’m at the end of my PIP. My manager has already reassigned my work and has hired my replacement. I have a meeting with him on 9am on Friday. I’ve accepted defeat and decided to take a ... See More road trip to see the National Parks before summer is over. I’m pretty devastated but I can try to decompress /process until I find the next thjng

This is my first time I’m getting fired in my 20 years of working, I’ve always been a high performer. I took 2 years off for a career break after a few surgeries and this was my first job back.

What are some things I should do to wrap up? Like change over emails to personal for 401k, cash out my FSA, etc.

Today I received a mysterious Fedex package with one share of Apple stock from 2004. Wondering how to proceed. - When I got home from work today I had a package from FedEx. Inside the package was a certificate for 1 share of common stock from Apple Computer, Inc. dated ... See More 2004. Stapled to the certificate is a letter from National Financial Services LLC. The letter reads,

“ Dear Customer, National Financial Services LLC has received and reviewed your deposit request; however, we are unable to complete this request for the reason(s) stated on the reverse side of this letter. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact a customer service representative.”

On the back of the letter there is a check mark on a box that says, “Certificate(s) have been escheated to the state.” It also gives me a number to call which I plan to do tomorrow during business hours.

I am not sure that this stock was meant for me. On the back of the stock certificate there is a box for the social security number of the assignee. This SSN does not match mine.

I’m assuming someone would do their due diligence before sending this to me? Think it is meant for me?

Any chance this is a scam? Any chance this WAS actually meant for me? Any advice on how to proceed?

Thanks.

Edit: consensus seems to be that this is a scam. That was my first instinct. Thanks for all of the replies.

Update: I called Fidelity (they manage my 401k and IRA). The guy I spoke with confirmed that they had no record of sending me anything. He also told me that the primary mailing address for them is in Cincinnati OH. The package was mailed from Jersey City NJ. He said it’s safe to throw it out.

Update 2: I called Apple Investor Relations (computershare). They verified that the certificate number was valid and that it was associated with my name. They also verified it had been escheated by a state but would not tell me which one. They did confirm that is wasn’t one that I live(d) in. I went to missingmoney.com and there are two properties with my name (over $100) with Apple Inc as the reporting business. I emailed the treasury for that state asking for some clarification. I’m now so confused…

Financial advisor is telling me to pause Roth payments over canceling whole life policy - Title is the situation. I have worked with this guy for a few years and recently he got me to invest in a whole life account.

However after a home purchase my monthly expenses have gone ... See More up and I need to make some decisions to lower my monthly expenses.

When I brought this up I got push back in several emails, with the most recent telling me the title.

I was surprised because everything I've heard from others and including him says it is smart to make payments to a Roth account especially since I'm still in the lower tax bracket.

Any thoughts? Is my guy worth it? Should I send him packing? Am I wrong? Should I pause my Roth payments?

New job is allowing me to save ~$3000usd a month. I’m not financially literate - I’m 19, always worked for low pay in the past and never really had more than a few hundred bucks to my name but now I’m taking home $4500 after tax a month, with almost ... See More no expenses I can save the majority of this income.

Right now I have about $8000 sitting in my account. I don’t know much about investing etc, but I want to invest the majority of my pay to beat inflation. Any tips?

College scholarship revoked days before tuition is due. Now what? - So my son is entering college as a freshman in the fall. He was awarded a need-based opportunity scholarship for $8,500 for the school year, or $4,250 per semester. In June, we received a bill for ~$8,019 for the ... See More fall semester. When I logged on last week to pay the bill that is due on the 9th, I was shocked to find that the balance due was $12,269 and there was no longer any information regarding the scholarship on his account. We received no correspondence that the scholarship was being revoked.

I spoke to the school’s financial aid office who told me that the removal of the scholarship was due to a rule change in how the state (NJ) calculates awards. They couldn’t give me details at the time; I had to request an appointment with a counselor, which takes place on Tuesday.

Does anyone have any experience with being awarded a scholarship, only to have it taken away without warning? It seems unfair/unethical to hand someone thousands of dollars, only to rescind it weeks later. Do I have any recourse?

Are me and my fiancée as financially screwed as she thinks we are? - My fiancée (24F) and I (23M) just bought a home in January and are getting married in a year. She has anxiety about money and always wants to be very frugal with our money (something she ... See More takes from her parents) and spend as little as possible on fun stuff. I understand why she’s worried because when we moved in we had about $25k in savings after closing, but after making a lot of improvements to the house and purchasing necessary appliances and tools, as well as scheduling our honeymoon and getting a dog, we’re now at $19k, but I’m not as concerned about it.

Together we take home ≈$5700/month after taxes and have $19k in our savings.

Our only debt is a $3500 medical expense for our dog which we have a year to pay off with no interest (not covered by pet insurance).

We’re both still on our parents health insurance, but she is a teacher and will get a good medical plan when we need to switch to that.

I have no retirement plan yet but will get a 401k with company match next year and my fiancée has a 403b she pays into weekly and that gets taken out of her paycheck.

Our mortgage is $2150/month

We allocate about $800/month for groceries/takeout

We pay about $300/month on utilities & internet

We pay about $200/month on misc subscriptions and life/pet insurance

And I have a decent drive for work while she works locally so we pay about $200/month on gas.

So normally we’re spending about $4000/month on necessities, and put away as much as we can every month (typically $1000+)

Large projects on the house have set us back a little bit as well as getting a dog and booking our honeymoon but I think that we’re fine financially, and see our large spending slowing down significantly. We’re both projected to get raises every year, but if not my degree allows for a lot of flexibility as to what I can do and how much I can make, experience is the only issue.

So should I be more worried like and be more willing to cut out any fun expenses like eating out or buying things for fun? Or do you guys think we’re living comfortably and my fiancée should worry less?
Please ask for more info if it’s needed to better evaluate our situation, this is my first post here after lurking!

Edit: thank you all for your thoughts and help, it’s helping see what I couldn’t. It seems like the overall consensus is this:

-Yes we should cut down on spending (takeout, unnecessary purchases) until we have a better emergency fund under our feet

-Look into an HYSA and separate slush savings and emergency funds

-A more rock solid budgeting strategy would benefit us greatly and reduce some anxiety

-Establish short and long term savings goals

-Focus more on retirement

Am I crazy for thinking about leaving my job? - I am in my early 30s and have a very stable job in tech making over $200k base. Health insurance, 401k matching, 3 weeks paid time off, small yearly bonus. The job is not overly demanding, but there are those ... See More times that I have to work late into the night/early morning if there is a critical issue. I am able to save about $7,800/month with my current living situation, which is amazing to me. If I keep going, I will soon be able to buy a house, a ring for my girlfriend, and live comfortably.

I also have a side job that I started about 3 years ago. It grew out of my passion for cooking. I have a private chef/catering business and I have been pretty successful at it. I do everything from 4 person dinners to large catered parties and I love doing it. I have received very positive reviews, my schedule is booked out, and o have obtained a large following. However, it is a lot of work. Long hours of prep and planning, a lot of chances for things to go wrong, unreliable help, etc. I am at the point where the growth of my side job has plateaued because I simply don’t have the time to devote to it. I am burning myself out doing both jobs and have recently taken a little break from the dinners. All I think about is what this business COULD be and all of the potential that is there if I just focused 100% on it.

I have recently started to resent my day job. I feel like it has no true importance and that my purpose in life was not to sit at a computer desk for 8+ hours a day working just so this company can make millions of dollars. I don’t want to have to ask for permission to take a vacation or spend time with my kid (when I eventually have one). On top of that, we are now being required to come back into the office for the majority of the week, even though we have proven that we can be an efficient and profitable company working remotely.

So, with all that being said, I would love to quit my day job and focus on my private chef business. Am I insane to leave a comfortable $200k+ desk job with health insurance to follow my passion and risk it in the food industry?

EDIT: I came back from a few calls and had a ton of comments here. Way more than expected. I am trying to make my way through all of them. Thank you everyone for the advice. There were some really good suggestions and helpful insight from what I have read so far. I think I really need to set some time aside to evaluate my current financial position and figure out what I would need saved up for my girlfriend and I to feel confident about such a move. The last 3 years have been a blur working both jobs and I really haven’t taken the time to do a deep dive into my numbers. I may be letting my emotions lead the charge on this decision when it should really be the numbers. Hiring some help is something I’ve been thinking about for a while and it seems to be a common thread in the comments. I guess it’s time to make some Craigslist posts. Thank you again!!!

EDIT 2: I continue to get great responses on this. But a lot of people seem to think that I want to quit my 9-5 so I can take vacations and work less hours. That is not true. The point i was trying to make is that grinding for something that I built seems a lot more appealing to me than grinding for someone else’s company. I am not naïve to the fact that growing my own business will consume my life, especially in the food industry. I admit that I am romanticizing this idea to a certain extent. But I am well aware that it will become my life from morning to night 7 days a week. It is something I have thought long and hard about and I have been preparing my girlfriend for that possibility for a couple years now just so she is also aware of how it will affect our lives.

In praise of emergency funds - Over the last couple of years I’ve been steadily building my emergency fund - my goal is 6 months’ worth of expenses and I’m sitting on about 5 months’ worth now. That account has tempted me once or twice when I wanted to buy ... See More a big-ticket item or spend a little extra for a vacation. But I kept my hands off it and just let it sit in an HYSA.

I didn’t know if or when I would need it. That’s impossible to predict. But I need it now and I am so grateful that I didn’t touch it. Because when you do need it, there is nothing like the relief and security of having it there.

My mother is very ill, and I had to take a leave of absence as her primary caregiver so I could focus on her needs. My state does have family leave insurance (FLI), but there are a few hoops to go through before I will be paid. I’ll be at least 2-3 weeks without any income at all, and when the FLI kicks in it will reimburse for those few weeks but only at about half of my take home pay.

And when it rains, it pours, right? I also just got hit with a pretty hefty car repair bill.

I would be so stressed if I didn’t have my emergency fund to back me up. The peace of mind I have right now to not worry about how I’ll pay for rent or groceries or that repair is worth every single grumble I made when I wished I had that money for fun.

Just wanted to share my experience. Budget for that emergency savings. Hopefully you’ll never need it, but if you do you will be so glad you have it.

Laid off 9 days away from being fully vested in 401k - do I have any way to not lose that vested money? - Unfortunately I’m part of the the great layoff of 2023. I’m in California and because of my company’s size, my employer was required to give me ... See More 60 days notice before laying me off. Including those 60 days, I am 9 days away from working for my employer for 2 years, which is the required amount of time to have my 401k be fully vested. I’m losing $15k. I reached out to HR to see if I could apply 9 days of my PTO to reach two years but they ghosted me. I’m guessing I’m screwed here but I thought I’d ask you all just in case there’s something clever I could do.

Husband Doesn't Believe We Are Broke - My husband doesn't believe me when I say we have no money. My current job doesn't pay great, but I to work from home and maintain the house. We make roughly the same.

Our bills are just too much. We have too many credit ... See More cards, and he doesn't realize the amount that is put on each month, not including the interest. It's $15 here, $20 there, $60 for a video game, then $150 in food for us and our toddler. He wants a hobby/toy each week claiming "it's just $25"

What can I do? At this point I'm pinching dimes and nickels from him so it looks like I'm depriving him of life but we can't afford it.

Edit: we make about $90k a year and live in CA. Our mortgage is $4600, $1,200 in daycare a month and after paying bills we have $300 left. Not including the amount put on credit cards.

We owe like $35k in credit card.

How to keep house in divorce without refinancing? - Spouse has agreed I can keep the house. I can afford to buy out her equity. But the lender won’t release her from liability, and I can’t refinance without jumping from a 2.9 to a 7% interest rate.

Is our only ... See More option to sell the house? Are there any creative legal ways we can contract around this?