Transferring assets to simplify accounts

[disneysteve]

Edited to add: I did some additional portfolio housekeeping. See update below.

I finally took the first step to simplify some of our investments. I've been procrastinating for way too long but as retirement approaches, I want to start working on this.

We have a taxable mutual fund account with Heartland Funds.
We have a taxable brokerage account with Vanguard.
I checked and we can move the Heartland Fund holdings into our Vanguard account as a transfer in kind. I got the paperwork last night on Vanguard's site. I called Heartland this morning just to make sure there wasn't anything special I needed to do on their end. My wife and I just signed the form and I'll mail it off today.

There is more work to be done but it's one step in simplifying everything.

[Like2Plan]

Good job. DH and I have been doing this, too. I can’t believe how much easier it is to keep track of things.
In the way back machine I “thought” we would consolidate with Vanguard, but due to DH having a couple of workplace 401’s with Fidelity (and Fidelity’s efficiency at electronically processing rollovers) and some of the banking options they have at Fidelity, I’m beginning to think we might end up at Fidelity, instead. So many of the advantages of Vanguard have been neutralized in the last few years with the reduction in fees and do on. I go back and forth on the issue.
The main reason I am still thinking about Vanguard is their relatively inexpensive advisor service for my heir(s) after I am gone.
What made you decide to go with Vanguard?

[disneysteve]

What made you decide to go with Vanguard?

We opened our first Vanguard account in 1995 to invest in the S&P 500 fund. It was touted as being a really great low cost investment. Vanguard has long been a leader in that department. Other companies have followed suit but Vanguard really started it.

On 8/31/95, we opened our account with $3,000.
Today, we have $677,000 with Vanguard.

[cypher1]

That's awesome. Great start to simplify investments. Shouldn't this be in the declutter thread as well?

[disneysteve]

That's awesome. Great start to simplify investments. Shouldn't this be in the declutter thread as well?

Good point. It will reduce clutter, especially because I'm old school and prefer paper statements. I will no longer get statements from Heartland - just from Vanguard.

[srblanco7]

I finally took the first step to simplify some of our investments. I've been procrastinating for way too long but as retirement approaches, I want to start working on this.

We have a taxable mutual fund account with Heartland Funds.
We have a taxable brokerage account with Vanguard.
I checked and we can move the Heartland Fund holdings into our Vanguard account as a transfer in kind. I got the paperwork last night on Vanguard's site. I called Heartland this morning just to make sure there wasn't anything special I needed to do on their end. My wife and I just signed the form and I'll mail it off today.

There is more work to be done but it's one step in simplifying everything.

I'm partially complete with a similar effort - moving funds to Vanguard. Noted that some funds were straightforward and others required a Medallion Signature Guarantee.

As a "heads up", for the funds we moved, I can no longer see the cost basis info for those funds on either the Vanguard or other fund company website. I had the cost basis info in a spreadsheet and have written it down on a quarterly statement that I'm keeping for my records. Not sure if I'll receive paperwork at year end that provides the details, including the cost basis, of the transaction.

[disneysteve]

I took care of some additional portfolio housekeeping and clean up tonight.

I had recently looked and discovered that one taxable fund we own can't be transferred into our Vanguard account. Something that's been on my To Do list for far too long is to rollover DW's 403b and 401k accounts into her existing rollover IRA, so I realized I had to check if the funds in those accounts could be transferred.

I sat down tonight and logged into her 403b. First thing I realized, and I have no clue why this never really occurred to me before, was that one of the two funds in that account represented about 0.07% of our portfolio - essentially nothing. The other fund can be moved over to Vanguard. So I exchanged the 0.07% fund into the other fund, leaving just one fund in that account that is fully transferable.

Then I moved onto her 401k. There were three funds in that account, one of which could be transferred, one which couldn't, and one that also held an insignificant amount of money. I exchanged all of the non-transferable one into a nearly identical fund that is transferable. I exchanged the very small 3rd fund into that new fund as well. So now that account holds two funds that are fully transferable.

Obviously, the next big step is to actually do the rollovers. We'll probably do that in a couple of weeks when I have some vacation time so we can sit down together since she needs to be the one to actually make the calls and sign any paperwork.

But the end result today is that everything in those two accounts is now ready to roll over. Plus I eliminated 2 funds entirely from our portfolio which further simplifies our record keeping.

Now I just need to update my portfolio spreadsheet to reflect all of the changes (which I'll have to do again after we do the roll overs).

[disneysteve]

As a "heads up", for the funds we moved, I can no longer see the cost basis info for those funds on either the Vanguard or other fund company website.

Yep, I had realized that but thanks a lot for mentioning it. That would be an easy point to overlook.

[amarowsky]

What a freggin small world (or a growingly buggy simulation!) I LITERALLY just had my 401k Roll over complete from my last employer! The check cleared sometime late this week from my older retirement into my vanguard!

Was getting tired to adding in so many finance/equity brokers into my trackers and calculations. I believe it's sitting in just cash now. So I oughta start to divide it out into whatever I want for it now. Thankfully I'm rarely risky in my retirement accounts (pretty plain jane 3 fund passive for the most part).

I waited about a year to do this. Funny how random coincidences happen (consolidation efforts @ same time). Also have been thinking about getting rid of a few cards (lowes card kinda sucks.... rarely even works at the store and the benefit is negligible).

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I'm a little pissy because we were moving our stuff to Bank of America for the refi to get a better rate. I moved two roth iras and taxable accounts Then we didn't go through and I had left some accounts with TD ameritrade. But since I moved everything and I was going to get like $3k i decided to leave it for a few months then consolidate back to TD ameritrade. ugggh!

[QuarterMillionMan]

I have a roth IRA with BofA ($150) and Merrill Edge ($32,000). They merged but I am having the hardest time moving the $150 from BofA into Merrill Edge. I think it's a rollover but could be a transfer in kind. I've filled out numerous forms but that $150 seems to be stuck in BofA. One day I will make an appointment and go in person to BofA to see how I can transfer that $150 over to Merrill.

[disneysteve]

Something that's been on my To Do list for far too long is to rollover DW's 403b and 401k accounts into her existing rollover IRA

We'll probably do that in a couple of weeks when I have some vacation time so we can sit down together since she needs to be the one to actually make the calls and sign any paperwork.

We made that call yesterday. I downloaded the transfer form and we filled that out. It needed to be signed by her old employer (our synagogue) so I stopped by today and go the Director to sign. I initiated the transfer on Vanguard's end, including printing the letter of acceptance needed. Everything will get mailed out tomorrow or Friday (depends on the weather if we get out of the house tomorrow) and the 403b rollover will be complete on our end and will just need to be processed between the two companies.

Next up is rolling over her 401k.

[disneysteve]

Next up is rolling over her 401k.

We're about to check that one off the list. I downloaded the transfer form the other day and filled out most of it. I had a couple of questions so we just called and got those answered. My wife signed the form. I just have to make copies for our records and mail it off, though I'm going to wait until after Christmas at this point because I know the mail system is a mess right now.

Hopefully by the end of January, the taxable mutual fund, her old 403b, and her old 401k will all have moved into our Vanguard accounts.

[disneysteve]

The 403b transfer went through on the original company's end on 12/28. It hasn't actually showed up in her Vanguard account yet though so it's in limbo somewhere.

The 401k transfer hasn't occurred yet but we didn't mail those papers until a few days ago.

The original transfer that I started the thread about is still in the works. Initially, Heartland told me I didn't need a medallion signature guarantee, so I submitted all of the paperwork without one. Then Vanguard contacted me and said I do need one. I told them that's not what Heartland said, so they tried to put it through and it got rejected. Turns out we need one after all. I'll see if we can get that tomorrow. If not, we can do it during the week.

[disneysteve]

I thought of this thread after making another change to our portfolio this week. The Roth I inherited was invested in an actively managed fund with Vanguard that seeks to beat the S&P 500. Of course, when you look at the performance data, the actual results are nearly identical but it charges an ER that is 8 times higher than their S&P 500 Index fund. I sold off the entire position and replaced it with the index fund. Since we already own the index fund elsewhere in our portfolio, the end result was eliminating one fund overall.