You Might Need to Check Your 401(k) if…

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Several weeks ago I was attending a comedy show and one of the comedians was Jeff Foxworthy. If you live in the southeast, you are probably familiar with Foxworthy and some of his acts and stories including his famous “You Might Be a Redneck if…” jokes. For those of you outside the southeastern United States, Foxworthy often defines a “redneck” as “someone with a glorious lack of sophistication.” Parts of his routine may be slightly exaggerated, but it’s quite funny because it is relatable to some of the good people of the south. For example, Foxworthy would tell you that you that you might be a redneck if you have ever cut grass and found a car, if you've ever bought a used baseball cap, and if you've ever deliberately hit a deer with a car, but I digress…

One part of my job as a financial planner and investment advisor is to help clients properly consider their employer’s retirement plans and properly coordinate their plan’s investment options with their risk tolerance, time horizon, and overall investment strategy. In my experience I have found that this is a financial area that many people do not consider as closely or as frequently as they should. A long airline flight out west to visit some clients gives a guy from the southeast some time to think, so I thought today I’d mix one of Jeff Foxworthy’s most famous skits with some retirement plan warning signs. I present to you “You Might Need to Check Your 401(k) if...”

• If you aren’t positive how to log into your employer’s retirement plan website, you might need to check your 401(k) Plan.
• If you don’t know the custodian or administrator’s name who is in charge of your employer’s retirement plan, you might need to check your 401(k) Plan.
• If you don’t know how much you’re contributing each pay period, you might need to check your 401(k) Plan.
• If you don’t know your company’s matching contribution, or if they even have one, you might need to check your 401(k) Plan.
• If you’re not sure how your contributions are invested, or if you ever chose for your contributions to be invested in the first place, you might need to check your 401(k) Plan.
• If you don’t really have a reason outside of “gut feel” or what your co-worker told you they did for why your contributions are invested the way they are, you might need to check your 401(k) Plan.
• If your contributions are invested heavily in your company’s stock, you might need to check your 401(k) Plan.
• If you aren’t certain you have confirmation of your plan’s primary and contingent beneficiaries, you might need to check your 401(k) Plan.
• If you aren’t sure you ever did anything with your employer retirement plans from previous jobs, you might need to check your old 401(k) Plans.

It doesn’t matter what your employer's retirement plan is called. It can be a 401(k) Plan, a 403(b) Plan, a Thrift Savings Plan, a Retirement Savings Plan, or anything else. What matters is that you can affirmatively answer that no, you don’t need to check your employer’s retirement plan after each of my above phrases. If you don’t need to check your retirement plan, that’s great, and I urge you to keep up the good work. If you found some of my phrases troubling, concerning, or even embarrassing, it really is no laughing matter, and I hope you’ll quickly rectify the situation.

As always, please let me know if I can help.

-Tom