The theme this week on the One Minute Retirement Tip podcast is How To Consolidate Old Investment Accounts

Today, I’m talking about how to rollover an old 401k to an IRA account. Too often, I find that clients have old 401k accounts that they never moved into their IRA until years later because it just didn’t seem worth the effort. For reasons that I’ve beat you over the head with already this week, it is worth the effort! 

I asked our associate paraplanner Michelle to share with you the step by step instructions for rolling over your 401k to your IRA. So get out your notepad, because this step-by-step process will make it easy and if you get started today, you can be done with consolidating your old 401k accounts in just one phone call. 

Here’s the process she’s developed in helping to facilitate well over 100 rollovers in her career thus far: 

The first step is to make sure you already have an IRA account open. Your old 401k needs an IRA to rollover into and so you need to get the IRA account set up first. Once you have the IRA account open, and you are eligible for a rollover, calling the financial institution is the easiest and quickest way to process a rollover. 

I know in the digital age, that sounds weird. Can’t you do this all online? Yes, you can, but that usually adds to the likelihood that you’ll check the wrong box on something and it is not faster than picking up the phone and calling. 

Just log in to your account to get the phone number or grab the phone number off your recent statement. Then pick up the phone and give the financial company a call. There is no prep involved for you and you can usually take care of everything in one phone call. Sometimes, you may need to sign a form, but often the rollover can be initiated directly over the phone. 

It’s important to know that even though a check will be made payable to your IRA account, the check will most often be mailed to you at your home address and you will need to forward it to the financial institution where your IRA account is held. It usually takes about 5-7 business days for the rollover check to arrive. If it’s an option, be sure to request that the check be mailed directly to the financial institution where your current IRA account is held, to save the extra step of you receiving the check and forwarding it on.

Once the check is in your IRA account and the money is invested, that’s it! See, that wasn’t too hard was it? 

That’s it for today, Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip. 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance