@CT1417 Yep, I’d never looked for comparison before. The YTD, first 1099 and the 2nd 1099 are all different. But close enough for horseshoes I guess. I let DH worry about the details to the cent, I’m OK with ballpark range. I think it has to do with the mutual funds not sending Schwab corrected information until after the deadlines.
We’ve never bothered changing our IRS tax forms for later arrived 1099 corrections either. So far we have stayed out of jail…
I mostly am familiar with Schwab and Fidelity websites. DH has the Vanguard accounts and I just go into them for downloading transactions, which seems easy enough. I hate it when the companies change everything out from under me though because I am such a creature of habit. Schwab had a big change to their website a couple (5?) years ago and I thought it was a huge mess/mistake. Now it seems good though. We are not high volume traders or trackers though. Once the monthly transfers were set up for us to live on I only check to see that there is enough cash to transfer about every 3 months.
The few thousand difference between the Dec statement and the 1099 is significant on a percentage basis , although as you commented, close enough for tax projections.
My revised 1099 differential is usually slight, but I do recall going through the exercise of inputting the revised 1099 into TurboTax, but now cannot be 100% positive. I may have just manually adjusted the one or two figures that changed.
I didn’t have this Schwab account prior to the change so fortunately this is all I know! I still wish Schwab could run a YTD taxable option on their website, but not bothersome enough to move the funds.
I forgot to mention that FA use to use TD Ameritrade, but when Schwab purchased TD Ameritrade, Fidelity offered the same kind of professional agreement to FA team as the prior TD Ameritrade – so people like us changed our funds into Fidelity, and that is when I also had our personal stock account also be Fidelity.
Lots of comments over the last few days. Glad to see the good comments about Fidelity.
I don’t think I’d open a Vanguard account for that if I had something already at Schwab or Fidelity. Even if I didn’t, I can’t think of any reason to open an account at Vanguard unless I’m opening accounts at many different places because I want to spread out my money. Schwab and Fidelity both have high (over 5%)money market funds, plus you could buy Vanguard funds through those brokerages, if you really wanted to.
Just hard to navigate through Vanguard for things that should be simple. So irritating. I don’t want to be on the phone for over an hour with someone when I should be able to do it online with a few clicks.
My first job out of college was at Vanguard, back in the mid-80s. We set up accounts there – a joint money market and mutual funds – and later, a rollover IRA consolidating all my 401k and pension distributions. We only have one actual stock holding, a utility which split into two companies last year. Bought it in the late 80s.
Count me in as one who strongly dislikes Vanguard’s website. Getting basic info is like pulling teeth. Spent two hours trying to get EOY info so we could pay estimated taxes (so 1099s had not yet been issued). I hate that Vanguard made us go to the brokerage account model – so many of their reports are designed for that, but what I need are fund-by-fund numbers because H has to do mandated disclosures in a couple of months and we’ll need that micro detail. Haven’t had problems with customer service. We’re eligible for an online advisor – but not the personalized service. We haven’t felt the need for either yet, as we are happy with our fund returns and between my pension background and H’s tax knowledge, we can cover most bases.
We had the guys’ college funds in a USAA mutual fund for a while, but the return was lousy, and when they moved everything to Schwab we just closed their accounts and moved them to Vanguard. We still have some money market accounts at USAA, but they are still paying micro interest. OTOH, it’s easier to transfer to our regular checking from USAA than from Vanguard, so we just keep a modest balance at USAA to facilitate that. All of our insurance is there, as well as one of our credit cards.
H’s 401k is still in FERS, and it will probably stay there til we are both gone, because the fund expenses are ridiculously low. He switched to target date funds in late 2019 so weren’t as exposed to the market. We laddered them among three different target dates (2030, 2035 and 2040) – they are still the same FERS funds, just different fund allocations with each target portfolio. I believe his current contributions are going to specific FERS funds. We don’t plan to annuitize the 401k since he will have a good pension and SS, so will draw from it as we need extra cash for big purchases, at least til RMDs begin.
There was an article in Fortune that piqued my interest – for govt employees, take a look! https://fortune.com/well/article/irmaa-how-some-people-avoid-medicare-surcharge-on-premiums/amp/ Of course, I wonder how much longer it will take before post-retirement employer medical goes away altogether, and the premiums on our current plan would be higher in retirement than Medicare, even if we hit IRMAA.
For all those who use Fidelity:
What personal services do you use besides their website? For what fees? Do you do all your own financial management? Are Fidelity advisors available for occasional questions specific to your portfolio?
We’ve been searching for an advisor that we can ask occasional questions, but don’t want an AUM model. (We prefer a ‘set it and forget it’ model, with occasional rebalancing). But there are the occasional questions. Just one example: Once we start withdrawing RMD’s, which specific account should we raid first?
Will Fidelity work with you for those specific questions, or must you use their management services to have access to a personal advisor?
We have a significant amount of money with Fidelity. We do have advisors that we consult with quarterly or as needed, but don’t always take their advice. They also connected us with an estate attorney to review our trust (which we do periodically).
H has a finance MBA and S has degrees in both finance and accounting. They both have similar philosophies and enjoy talking markets and investments. It’s served us well over the years (we’re retired now). If he’s unable to manage our accounts I’ll probably be more conservative, but I can’t imagine the situation that we’d be in trouble.
I am 51. My wife will have a pension for retirement. We have our retirement funds about 70% in IRAs/401Ks and 30% in after tax mutual funds. We have a solid emergency fund although I wouldn’t mind adding 20-25% more to it. The retirement funds are now back to where they were 12/31/2021. I am trying to decide if I should continue to ride this upswing or reset and be more conservative. We have weathered 2000, 2008, 2020 & 2022 without doing anything. When did you guys get more conservative.
I just don’t see a recession until the unemployment rate starts to increase.
I always think it’s a bad idea to try to time the market. You are young. You aren’t investing just to get to retirement age; your money has to last as long as you do. If you retire at 65 you could easily live another 25 years so you are looking at needing money for 40 years from today. Personally, I was 90% stocks until last year, and I’m 10 years older than you.
Decide your risk tolerance and go from there but recognize the time horizon you are really facing.
We took more conservative positions once we retired. My dad’s portfolio got absolutely decimated in the late 2000’s. It’s very difficult to recover from that once you actually need the money you worked hard to save. The vast majority of people don’t have a combination of pension & SS that allows them to use retirement savings as more or less play money. If you happen to be in that position, more power to you. But most of us need to protect our nest eggs so that they will be there for us long term.
Our 401k is the account we had that took the downswing in 2022, and like you, it is back to where that fund was before the downswing. However, that is only a portion of our portfolio. We are 67, and can ‘weather’ the stock swings in this 401k - we of course don’t like to see the down side, but spin off into an annuity when the 401k grows too big. We determine when it is ‘too big’ and if there is an annuity (or other investment pick) to move some funds into.
A portion in equities, if you make changes, you might be missing capturing all of the upswing – however you could try to do something ‘protective’ to weather the downturn and still find the portfolio still going down. 2022 had both stocks and bonds going down – something ‘unique’ to happen (inverse relationship tends to be what happens).
Long term, equities do better. However a ‘wipe out’ type of occurrence close to or during retirement is definitely not comforting.
One has to find the ‘balance’ one is comfortable with.
One has nothing to do with the other. Most companies provide 401K opportunities, but very few offer pensions anymore. The ones that are still offer pensions would likely also have 401K plans or something similar.
