Hello! My previous employer had taken deductions from my paychecks for a 401k. I worked there from 2023-2025, where I was under the impression there was a 401k account with fidelity that my retirement would be going to. Fast forward to my new employer offers a 401k plan and I contact fidelity to see if these can be connected/merged somehow. Lo and behold fidelity has nothing for me on file. I’ve spent the past two weeks searching with the DOL and state databases to see if anything under my social existed. My previous employer is directly ignoring my emails and calls both at corporate and hr levels. I contacted ADP and they have no record of a 401k attached to my account despite my pay history claiming money was taken. My statements and paystubs say the same. What should I do?
EDIT: I was 19 at the time of being hired. It is possible since I was under 21 there was no 401k account made. My wages were still deducted however as marked in my W2 and paystubs. Fidelity Net Benefits does not have me on file. I am not worried about potential lost vest. I want to know where the money I contributed ended up.
UPDATE: i sent a certified letter today as well as sent an email to my previous hr admin with a cc to one of the owners of the company who frequently visited our location while I was employed. I will contact the DOL if I do not get a timely response. Thank you everyone who took the time to comment advice I really appreciate it.

Everyone online recommends 15% for your 401k, which is insane in my opinion… I absolutely could not afford that. My budget is so tight. I’m thinking about dropping from 12% to 8% because I’m paycheck to paycheck and frightened. But people online seriously act like it’s the end of the world if I do that. But then advice says save your salary 1x by 30, and I’m halfway there in my mid 20s when I started at 22 at the same time! I’d still be meeting my company match at 8%… so thoughts?

edit: My finances are in a poor state because I’ve developed costly medical conditions. Emergency fund wiped, but no significant credit card debt yet.

I recently found out that my dad may have left behind an old 401k, and I’m trying to figure out what happens to it after all these years. This actually started because I was contacted by Fidelity, which is what prompted me to look into it further.

Here’s the situation:
My dad worked for Wilbur-Ellis around the early 1990s and apparently had a 401k through Fidelity. I’m not actually sure how long he worked there, just that it was sometime in that general period.

He passed away in 2012. He was not married when he died. I am his only child. As far as I know, there was no probate estate opened for this 401k, and I had no idea the account existed until recently. I was recently contacted by Fidelity, which is what brought this to my attention and started the process. I have already followed up with Fidelity and am working through their process.

At this point, I do not know whether my dad named a beneficiary on the account. My biggest concern is what happens if there is no beneficiary, the beneficiary predeceased him, or Fidelity can’t locate valid beneficiary information.

My dad died in Alaska, although I currently live in Washington. I’m trying to understand what I should expect and whether anyone has dealt with a similar situation involving a 401k that sat unclaimed for many years after someone’s death. A few things I’m especially curious about:

If there is no valid beneficiary, would the 401k normally become part of his estate?

If I’m his only surviving child/heir, would I potentially inherit it through the estate even though he died 14 years ago?

Would I need to open or reopen probate in Alaska to claim it?

Does the fact that so much time has passed create any major problems?

If the account was invested this entire time, would the beneficiary/estate generally receive the current account value, including investment growth?
Is there any reason I should hire a probate/estate attorney before submitting additional paperwork to Fidelity? Has anyone gone through Fidelity’s process for an old 401k where the participant died many years earlier? I’m not looking for anyone to tell me I’m definitely entitled to the money. I’m mainly trying to understand the process and what questions I should be asking Fidelity or an attorney.

If you’ve dealt with something similar, I’d really appreciate hearing what happened and what you wish you had known at the beginning.

Edit: To add info: Fidelity sent me a letter. Inside the letter said re: the company where he started the 401k. It stated if I was him then to call a number, if i wasnt then to go to fidelity.com/loss. It was all legit.

Edit #2: I would like to thank everyone for all the feedback. I surely didn’t expect this much. It’s great to know there are so many kind people in the world. I will be sure to pass this kindness on and pay it forward wherever possible. You’re all amazing and beautiful souls. Thank you.

I am 1 year into a job in local government that has a state pension, 14% match. Everyone is telling me “Don’t quit!” “PERS is so good!” But the thought of sitting at this cubicle for the next 24 years or so makes me want to implode. I have applications in at companies that have 401ks (one does a 9.5% match, the other does 5%) but I also have a Roth IRA I contribute to. I’m almost 29 years old. Would it be stupid for me to leave a pension job? The other jobs I have applications in are positions where people typically don’t retire because they can get away with working once or twice a month making over $100/hr. Those positions are an investment as well.

53M who is just starting to build up a retirement fund and emergency fund this year.

For the longest time, the only jobs I could find were fast food ones as I couldn't get anyone to give me a chance for an accounting position (which was what I studied for in college). Thus, I couldn't save up for retirement or start an emergency fund as I was just making enough to keep my head above water.

Earlier this year, I finally landed an accounting position at a small firm. 45k per year.

The good:

Credit Score over 600 (not great, but better than it was)

Emergency fund at 350, adding 50 bucks at a time.

Adding 700 dollars a month to traditional IRA

The not so good:

Student Loans at 147,000; recently just joined IBR plan; won't have to pay until July 2027...adding at least 100 per month while it's on pause.

Total retirement as of now is just over 1,000. Yeah, not great, Bob.

I was thinking of eventually opening my own practice in my 60s so I'll have income in case I end up in a layoff or struggle with finding a new job due to my age. I'm hoping to stick around in this current job until I get my CPA...firm is small but planning on growing which hopefully will mean higher pay.

I guess my question is how do I make up for lost time and get myself in a situation where I can think about retirement before I turn 75-80?

I ran a Investment calculator and at my age when I retire at 62, I will have around $4 million if I just save $1500 every month and invest VOO/VXUS with a return of 10%. If I saved $2000 every month I would have around $5 million at retirement age. That's without 401K and the likes. I put this in the retirement income calculator and it comes out to around $15000/month. That seems really doable and I can't imagine what I would be spending money on when I'm nearing that age to be spending more than $10,000 a month. Is there anything I'm not considering that would make this a low amount to retire on?

Edit: I didn't mean "cheap" I meant "simple", sorry!

I logged into an old 401k from a previous employer which had a significant amount of money in it. I was surprised to find that the balance at zero...the funds had been "converted." I was given no notice about this, and I cannot find out where this money went. I called ADP and they told me it went to fidelity. I went to fidelity and they have no record of it. WTH is going on and is this even legal? How did this happen with no notice to me whatsoever?

So I started with this company 4 years ago. 401k was supposed to kick in after 4 months. I waited nothing. I asked my boss she told me it should start automatically when I am eligible. I waited. I waited nothing. I ask her again she tells me it should be automatic again. So I wait. Now its well past when it should have started like 2 years. I call the payroll company, when I was hired my employer listed my birthday as the day I was hired so because I wasnt 18 years old(im 47)I wasnt eligible for 401k. They didnt notice I was zero years old? What can I do? What should I do? Any help would be great!

I’m 27, I earn $123k per year, spend about $2200 per month on rent + food + hobbies. I max my Roth 401k plus a 6% employer match, I have biweekly recurring investments of $900 (so $1800 per month). Is there anything I’m missing? I’m not committed to retiring super early but it would be nice! I currently have $270k in investments (Robinhood), $30k in high yield savings, and $215k in my Roth 401k.

Edit: okay gathering I should switch to traditional 401k.

Also, adding context for me as a person. I worked quite a bit in high school, and had 2 well-paying internships in college. My parents paid for my college and I lived with them for close to a year when I started working. I started investing at 18. I live in SF and my monthly expenses are around $2200, with a take home income of $5000/month. I’m super frugal, I rarely uber or eat out, I wear my shoes until they’re worn through, I only buy clothes on major sales, my mom had to convince me to spend money on produce when I started grocery shopping for myself (not a good thing, just explaining my mindset around money!). I’ve eased up a bit as I’ve gotten older and I spend money on hobbies and social stuff and travel but I’m always conscious of my spending.

My mom called yesterday saying she wants to lock in the 10yr bond rate with about 40% of her retirement money. Her thinking is she can live off the interest plus social security and not touch anything else.

The rest of her money is stuck in some investments a family member talked her into. Its probably not making anything but I dont think its going to zero either. She just wants to leave that alone for now.

Is the bond plan actually solid? I didn’t think it was the worst idea but would welcome other opinions.

Is 40% too much to tie up at once? Should she do it now while rates are ok or wait? Any thoughts/opinions would be welcome

Edit: shes 66. The rest of her investments are what i would consider as moderately speculative stocks, they aren’t beanie babies.

$3382.58 total deducted from my paychecks since 6/1/2026 with $0 of it posted to my balance.

9 paychecks total - bi-weekly pay schedule.

I'm already pissed more than I can say. I clearly didn't check this soon enough but the point is that from my understanding, HR/payroll is far past late (0-15 days) of their opportunity(ies) to make corrections for lack of handling with my 401K contributions that are from June 2026 - October 2026. Perhaps the standard two week period for individual corrections is irrelevant at this point since it was partially on me for not having raised issue.

What's recommended? Am I due lost earnings/recuperation?

Interest?

Do I file a claim with the Dept. of Labor or could that back fire?

Should I bring it up to my CEO? It's not out of norm within our company culture to be able to have meetings with the CEO. I think it's important to make it known how much of an issue and concern this is. Or would that be too personal?

I'm walking blindly here with no insight or guidance. This is my first big career job. Any help would be appreciated.

Hello everyone,

My father passed away after an intense battle with cancer last year, he was 73. After he passed, I took over his estate finances since my mother does not speak English and has no experience navigating this system. Since I was fairly young when he got sick, I assumed he had his finances in order, especially because he would reassure my mom that she would be financially set if he passed. Everything...was impossible to find.

When we accessed his 401k post passing, there was less than 20k total. For context, my dad worked as an IT manager at a major company for over 30 years, contributed yearly and retired late at the age of 70. So, I was very confused at this low balance. I finally spoke with his former employer and they told me he had taken out major chunks of money since turning 64.

Since he passed, we do not have access to his banking history and therefore I have no idea where this money went. After my father retired, he moved abroad and sold all his major assets including our house. He came home at 6pm everyday, did not like drinking and his internet history is clean of any gambling etc.

The 401k company refuses to give me any access to his history to see if there were totals transferred anywhere. Any advice of next steps???

Edit: We did go through probate court, my mother is the named beneficiar. Also my father sold his house because he wanted to retire back to Latin America, where the rest of my family is.

Hello everyone,

My mother-in-law (62) recently put herself in a situation that has our entire family extremely worried, and we’re looking for honest advice on what options she may realistically have.

She’s single, owns a home in Massachusetts, and is getting closer to retirement age. Financially, she was doing okay before this happened — about 8 years left on her mortgage, around $5,000 total in credit card debt, and she fully owned a 2017 Infiniti QX50 with about 90k miles.

Last week, we found out she financed a 2025 Infiniti QX50 for roughly $42,000. At first, she only mentioned the payment being around $845/month, which already sounded high. Once we looked over the actual lending agreement we were in shock.

The loan is 75 months at 13.77% APR for about $845/month and came out roughly $65,000 total sale price.

She’s now massively upside down on a vehicle that likely won’t hold anywhere near that value, especially over the life of the loan.

What makes this especially concerning is that she’s only a few years away from retirement and doesn’t have a large retirement fund to fall back on. We genuinely fear this purchase could seriously damage her long-term financial stability.

We understand she signed the paperwork and ultimately made the decision herself. We’re just trying to help her minimize the damage before this gets even worse.

EDIT: purchase agreement

My wife and I are in a great financial position to retire within 10 years, while we are in middle-40s age. However, I worry about health insurance. Is there any part time jobs where one of us works and can get family health insurance from? I heard Costco/starbucks are good companies that offer this perk. I'd rather not spend 50k/year on health insurance premiums through the ACA marketplace for family of 4

I’m sure this will get buried among the many posts today, but it bears repeating: short-term fluctuations in the stock market are short-term. The fact that the market is down right now does not affect your long-term investment outlook, as stocks are a long-term game. If you sell now, you will lose out on the rebound, just as my parents did during the financial crisis of 2008/2009. You do not want to sell now unless you are selling as part of your financial planning objectives that you have identified long before the whole Coronavirus panic hit.

Edit: this did not, in fact, get buried among the other posts today. RIP my inbox

Edit2: to answer some common questions:

1. “Is now a good time to invest?” - that’s a weighted question, and not one I can answer directly. There are many factors to determine whether or not it’s a good time to invest. Please refer to the wiki for investing resources to see if now is a good time for you to invest.

2. “Should I be reallocating from stocks to bonds now?” - as mentioned above, reallocations should be evaluated as part of your overall retirement strategy. A reallocation is basically selling some investments and buying others in place of those you sold; as such, it is generally unwise to reallocate in response to a single event and should really be done as part of your strategy towards retirement (e.g. reallocating from stocks to bonds as you get older to limit risk exposure).

3. “Will xxxxx affect me?” - I don’t know. Although I am a financial professional, if you have any questions relating to your particular circumstances, you should seek out a financial professional outside of Reddit or refer to the wiki in this sub for specific information.

4. “What if you’re close to retirement? Should I sell?” - if you’re close to retirement, the general financial planning consensus is that you should not have a significant percentage of your wealth in equities. Example allocations would be anywhere from 80/20 or 90/10 bonds to equities. If you have any more than 20% equities and are close to retirement, yes you should probably think about reallocating to bonds, but not because of this recent stock market panic. Again, please consider speaking to a financial professional or using the sub’s wiki for additional info.

I thought you kept your 401K account throughout retirement and withdrew when you need money. Someone told me you have to cash it all out when you retire. I was hoping you could set it up to sell/transfer cash to your checking account every week or two like a paycheck to yourself!How does it really work?

Basically the title. If I believe that a 4% (insert X% for your thesis here) drawdown rate is safe for retirement and the 30 year bonds rate is 6% (insert X+Y% for what your safety margin for your thesis is here), why would people still invest into stocks when bonds are at 6%?

The assumptions are of course:
1. The full faith and credit of the US government means something in 30 years (which is my thesis because if it does not, the financial market has a lot of other problems)
2. You believe in a safe drawdown rate

The only reasons I can think of that people don’t just pour their money into 30 year bonds when the rate is high enough are:
1. The majority of people are wanting capital appreciation and not just preservation
2. There is some flaw in the safe draw down calculations

I have 12k in HYSA. I work as a limited permit counselor and make between 40-50k a year. I have no 401k. I live with my mom, pay no rent, and plan on moving out next summer and live in NYC. Once I get licensed I'm anticipating a 20k salary increase.

I invested all of the 7500 in S&P. I know nothing about investing. What do I do with my money. I am planning on adding another 7500 come January because I am so behind on investing and setting up retirement fund.

Edit: Sorry guys, I guess the mod bots got us. I am no longer able to reply to you guys and provide information on my lunch break. I will finish off the work day and reply to any questions you guys have if the mods permit.

-------------------

I will try to keep this efficient.

I have worked for this company for 11 years, and contributing to my Roth 401k for 10 of those. Recently, I have realized that my employer has not been making my deposit into the account for about 2 years. I confronted him about it, and he admitted to it. He said he would make it right and put the money in my account by the end of the year. This is a small ~10 employee and 1.5mill/year business. I read Bogle books in my early 20s. I check my investments about once a year, but missed the deposit last year due to good performance masking it. Completely my fault for not noticing but I tend to leave it alone and forget about it with my funds. I knew the match was "pausing" in like 2020 or so, but I didn't realize in 2023 that my funds stopped being deposited at ALL.

I have asked that he deposit not only the value, but the growth that I would have had if he had deposited on time.

I have a lot of power at this company, because I generate about half of the yearly revenue by myself. He has agreed to switch 401k providers as well, because I identified the fees are very uncompetitive. The fee is about 1.5% per year of the total value in your 401k fund! It's ridiculous.

The point of this post is to identify my points of recourse if he doesn't deposit into the account by the end of the year as promised. I will obviously be leaving if that doesn't happen, but I need to know what legal recourse I have for this. I do not plan on pursuing anything if this is made whole, as I am the only one affected due to everyone else just not caring to contribute to retirement. I like my boss as a person, but obviously he has really screwed me here. Not trying to make excuses for him. I am livid but at least when confronted he folded and I may be able to make this into a win for myself by getting a better fund and being made whole. The company went through some major financial issues, but we have worked through them together.

Also, please recommend me where to start on moving our 401k plan. I need to shop around providers by the end of the year. I would really love to hear everyone's recommendations. We don't currently use our HR company for 401k, so I will ping them about their options first I think.

Retiring this year - hadn’t planned for it but wifey and I just decided to get away from the corporate world. We have made enough money so that was never a problem. We are 49 and 100% invested in equities (with 1-2 years of living expenses in short-term T-bills).

Anyhoo, now that we will be retired, the conventional investing wisdom is to move to bonds (maybe 20-40%). But I’m reading everywhere that this is the worst time to buy bonds or bond funds.

I understand the impact of rising interest rates on bonds but can ELI5, the overall implication of buying bonds / bond funds now, and maybe, even advise on my strategy?

TIA.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/irs-ruling-allows-401k-student-loan-benefits-2018-08-27

The IRS is setting up a framework for companies to match their employees' student loan repayments in the same way companies match 401k contributions. This will be cost neutral for the employer (edit: as in, it would not be more or less expensive for the company than traditional matching).

Edit: the employer's match would go into the employee's 401k account.

According to the article, employees with student loan debt accumulate 50% less wealth in their retirement plans (by age 30) than their peers without student loan debt. I think most of us with student debt have at one point or another felt "behind".

Thoughts? This is definitely a cool idea and would be a great hiring incentive/perk.

Edit 2: due to the popularity of this post, I wanted to remind everyone of some of the rules on our sub.

We don't allow: • Moralizing issues • Petitions • Political discussions • Political baiting • Soapboxing

This is meant to be a discussion of personal finance, debt, and retirement savings, not a meta review of the pros and cons of capitalism. Please keep things on topic.

Edit 3: Since a lot of people are confused, I'll explain how a 401k match works. A 401k is a retirement savings plan that came into popularity as pensions fell out of the mainstream. The 401k is a tax-efficient vehicle to invest your money for retirement. Like the pension, employers can contribite to their employees' 401k plans as a benefit. This is usually done via a matching mechanism: I contribute 4% of my paycheck, and my employer matches that amount. Matches are almost always capped.

With the method laid out in the article, you would be able to make qualified student loan payments and have your company match that amount as a contribution to your 401k, up to a certain amount. So say you make $2000 per month, your employer matches 5% of your 401k contributions, and your monthly minimum loan payment is $1000 (in this example, you have a lot of debt). You aren't contributing to your 401k currently. If your company chose to take advantage of this program, they would put $100 ($2000*0.05 match) in your 401k each month you made a payment on your student loan.

This doesn't "hurt" people without loans. This is only subsidized by the government insofaras the 401k is tax-sheltered (you still pay taxes on that money), and this doesn't constitute your company paying your loans. Participation isn't compulsory.

Is retirement really as simple as it seems? I’m early 30s, and am fortunate enough to be able to contribute the max amount to my 401k per year. If I run the math, depending on interest rates I would retire at 65 with roughly 6-7M, obviously there’ll be taxes paid on that, but I think I would be comfortable in retirement at 3M net.

Of course I’m trying to take advantage of other investments, but worst case maxing 401k is relatively safe, or am I over simplifying it?

So without getting into details, my SO (42) and I (44) only have about ~160k saved for retirement.

We’re saving as much as we can now: 36k per year in tax-advantaged accounts and another 8-12k in emergency savings.

I just don’t think it will be enough, especially because of my profession (content marketing) where layoffs are frequent.

I honestly worry myself sick about job loss and savings.

Edit: My favorite comment is that I’ll end up the same distance “more or less” from rich as I’ve always been. The goal was never to be rich, so that suits me. I wanted to be a professor, so I got a PhD. So rich was never goal. Also, on the PhD, do not recommend. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but so did heroin to a lot of people. Although they were all good comments.

My budget is 10k per month now. Probably somewhere between 7–8k bare bones. That’s with two kids, a mortgage, a car payment, consumer debt (which we’re aggressively paying down), stuff I absolutely don’t need (although I’m significantly curbing my spending habits), FICA taxes, etc, etc. to

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ge-to-freeze-pensions-for-about-20000-employees-stock-surges-2019-10-07

I see a lot of posts here about pensions vs 401ks, or people who say "I'm not worried because I've got a great pension plan", or something to that effect.

Well, this is a stark reminder that pensions are not bulletproof. Yes, ALL investing is some form of gambling, but with 401ks and IRAs it's at least YOUR money, which you control and can withdraw as needed. I am not saying that pensions are inherently bad and that no one should ever use one. They are a great cushion to your other assets. But please, please, please: do not SKIP other forms of investing because you think you're going to be set for life in retirement thanks to a company pension plan.

Unless your company arbitrarily limits your contributions or you are a highly compensated employee you are able to contribute $18,500 into your 401(k) plan. In order to max out you would need to contribute $18,500 into the plan of your own money.

All that being said. contributing to your 401(k) at any percentage is a good thing but I think people get the wrong idea by saying they max out because they are contributing say 6% and "maxing out the employer match"