- Not only will Ing not give up my money, Fidelity is sucking too. They ignored the checked box instructing them to make all accounts the same as the first account on our initial forms and put half our stuff into cash reserves. They also didn’t believe DH’s account roll over had vested so a good 30K has been sitting in cash reserves as they couldn’t move it to stocks (even though it was in stocks with Ing). And I can’t find an automatic annual re-balance feature.
- Update: I fixed the above with Fidelity (except the auto-rebalancing), but still annoying. Why do you have to fill out all those forms if they’re just going to ignore them?
- The Ing guy came by my office and finished half of a sentence in which he was wondering why I’d gone with Ing in the first place (since I seemed to be not entirely clueless). I told him I was pregnant and busy and he provided a service, but now I have more time. I also complained that they still haven’t transferred my account but he did not offer to help with that.
- #2 wishes she made as much money as #1.
- Quarterly dividends rock my world. (I said that already though)
- Everyday tips feels our pain. Free trials are eeeeevil.
- Those of you on something other than a Jan-start financial schedule, have you requested your FSA reimbursements yet? More than $2K reimbursement for daycare was just sitting in my account… Another almost 3K to go…
- Employer discounts are pretty awesome. I sure wish our employer listed them somewhere so we didn’t have to ask.
- Another reason to prefer index funds: trying to figure out cost-basis information. There’s a reason we haven’t sold our single share of AOL, or our multiple shares of the two Time Warner companies that used to be AOL. What a hassle. Yay for new legislation on providers to keep cost-basis info. Boo for it happening too late to help me!
Have you had any frustrating or joyful money experiences recently?
Grumpy Rumblings (of the formerly untenured) 
January 24, 2011 at 3:27 am
I’ll add one to the list…when a bank has separate divisions, so you can’t lump everything together or even call one number to get all your information at the same time. I once freaked out because a customer service person couldn’t find my TD Ameritrade 529 account. It was missing and the account number didn’t exist.
Well, eventually someone at TD Ameritriade figured out that I was calling the wrong number. I was supposed to be calling the TD Ameritrade 529 College Savings Plan division as it was a different business unit. I really hate when big companies like retail stores and banks don’t have one face to the customer.
January 24, 2011 at 6:24 am
Ugh, I’ve been tripped up by that online, trying to log into the wrong division. What is it with these big companies?
January 24, 2011 at 5:48 am
After reading this I’m having a moment of nostalgia and missing my old job that was really horrible but had great benefits! It use to seem like some sort of magically money fairy kept pushing money into my Schwab account every time I turned away…..oh, the good ole’ days.
Money has been kind of neutral for me this month- I got nothin’.
January 24, 2011 at 6:24 am
Automagic retirement savings is always nice!
January 24, 2011 at 6:38 am
First off, let me reference your previous post and say I always blog and work from my couch. (In my renovated family room… :) )
I tried cashing in my HCA money with the little credit card they gave me, but the use of the card expired Jan 1st, even though it says 2012 on the card. So now I have to manually submit a bunch of forms. I was a HCA idiot last year and only put enough away to cover a bone scan and a couple incidentals.
Good luck figuring out all that stuff with AOL and such. Did you buy the stock through etrade or something? Or were you buying each month?
Oh I have a newfound love for employee stock purchase plans. Our ROCKED last year!!!
Thanks for the link!
January 24, 2011 at 6:46 am
That is really annoying about the HCA. I haven’t ever put money in one (though I do put money in the daycare FSA).
The AOL stock was bought by my father many many years ago through Brown and Co which is now Etrade. It’s like forensics! I didn’t start managing my stock money until 2002 or so.
Be careful with the stock purchase plans… Enron…
January 24, 2011 at 7:16 am
Oh believe me, there will be no Enrons in my portfolio. I buy at a great discounted price, hold it a year, and then sell. It is a rolling plan, I never have more than one year’s worth of investment in his company in our portfolio at any time. We also have stock options in the company (that we are automatically granted) so I know I do not want to have too much invested in the company. You cannot beat the prices you can get in his ESPP though.
January 24, 2011 at 7:32 am
Good good.
January 24, 2011 at 9:13 am
Let’s see… a couple of weeks ago I successfully completed a rollover of my old 401k to an IRA (all through Fidelity) and purchased an index fund. It was painless. I kept thinking “This is too easy” and am waiting for the other foot to fall. I love the FSA and would like to get to a place where I don’t have to cash it out monthly and do it once a year like you do. That’d be a huge help around the holidays or whatever. But, I’m not that financially solvent yet. Soon, but not yet.
January 24, 2011 at 2:13 pm
I hope the other foot doesn’t fall!
I can’t imagine having a monthly FSA. I would never remember to do anything with that.
January 24, 2011 at 8:23 pm
Frustrating… I haven’t had any frustrating money experiences lately (knock on wood), but I am planning to ask for a raise in a few months, and I am in the preparation stage. I am expecting there be frustration in the process, but I hope I can persist and get a raise commensurate with the value I’m adding to the company.
January 24, 2011 at 9:21 pm
Good luck!
January 24, 2011 at 9:04 pm
Employer discounts *are* awesome. Unfortunately they also can make the transition back to reality sort of hard. I’ve had my mobile phone equipment purchase fully covered and my monthly service heavily subsidized for so many years that I’m really not sure what the market rates for data and minutes are anymore. Thank goodness there’s no need to worry about this anytime soon, as far as I know.
I look at the FSA and insurance reimbursements as being forced savings. Usually I go to doc > pay in full > submit claim > bank the insurance check. Then I submit FSA claim > get direct deposit for out of pocket amount. This forced savings can really add up every year.
As for stocks…due to the regulations at work, it’s so complicated for me to figure out what I can and cannot invest in, that I just don’t do it right now. Sooner or later I will have to figure this out, though, since I’m making so little in interest in my “high interest” online bank.
January 25, 2011 at 11:21 am
I don’t have many options, just your typical TIAA – CREF that most universities provide. So far, they seem to be doing pretty good, but I don’t know anything about investing, so I don’t risk much. I think the most joyful moment as regard to money I had recently was when I realized I would probably get a $500 tax refund when I file my taxes this year. I thought I was breaking even.
January 25, 2011 at 11:32 am
Yay refunds!