Get Your Accounts Logged In and Your Statements in Front of You
Okay. Time to actually open the envelope. Or, more likely, find the login you forgot you had.
Here's the thing. Most of what feels scary about retirement accounts isn't the math. It's not even knowing where to look. You've got a 401k from a job you left, maybe an old IRA, maybe something Aaron or your spouse set up years ago that you've never once logged into. Before we talk about any of it, we need to get it all in front of us. Actual documents, actual screens, actual numbers. Not "I think I have something with my old employeer."
So that's today. Not analyzing anything yet. Just gathering.
Step one: make a list of every account you might have
Grab a piece of paper. Yes, actual paper, I'll explain why in a minute. Write down every job you've had where retirement savings might have come up. Every IRA you've opened. Every account your spouse mentions in passing that you've nodded along to without really knowing.
Don't worry about being complete right now. You're just jogging your memory. If you genuinely can't remember whether an old job had a 401k, write the job down anyway with a question mark. We'll deal with question marks later in the class.
Step two: log into each one
For current accounts, this is usually easy. Check your pay stub or a recent email from your employer's benefits department. There's almost always a portal name on there somewhere.
For old accounts, this is where people get stuck, and it's exactly why they never open the envelope. If you left a job five years ago, the login you used then might not exist anymore. Don't panic. Look for a statement in the mail (paper or old email) and call the number on it. Tell them you're trying to get back into your own account. This happens constantly. Nobody on the other end of that phone call is going to think less of you.
One real caution here: be careful which "login help" links you click if you're searching around online. Retirement account logins are a favorite target for scam sites that look almost identical to the real thing. Go directly to the URL on your statement or pay stub, not whatever comes up first in a search.
Step three: print or save the actual statement
Once you're in, find the most recent statement. Not just the balance on the home screen, the actual statement, the one with your vesting schedule and your fund names on it. Save it as a PDF or print it if that's easier for you to mark up.
This matters because a home-screen balance tells you almost nothing. It doesn't tell you what you're invested in, what you're paying in fees, or how much of the employer match you're actually getting. We'll get into all of that in later lessons. Today is just: get the real document, the one with all the fine print, sitting in front of you.
Write the balances down by hand
Once you've got your statements together, take that same piece of paper and write down each account name and its current balance. By hand. I know that sounds old-fashioned when you could just glance at four different apps. But I've watched people do this both ways, and the spreadsheet version lets you skim right past a number without feeling it. The pen makes you sit with it for a second. That's the point.
Declan asked me once, at dinner, why I "write in the money book" every night. I told him it's so nothing surprises us. He just nodded like that made total sense to him and asked for more milk. Kids are funny about which parts they question and which parts they take completely for granted. Adults do the same thing with money, honestly, we just take the wrong parts for granted.
A word about spouses and partners
If you share finances with someone, do this part together, or at least tell them what you're finding as you go. I learned this one the hard way. Years ago I cut our grocery budget without saying anything to Aaron until I had the new number all figured out. I thought I was handling it. He just felt shut out. The mistake wasn't the budget. It was doing it quietly. If you're finding an old account you forgot about, or a balance that surprises you, say so out loud before you've processed it into something tidy.
Before next time
Bring your paper list and whatever statements you managed to track down, even the messy or incomplete ones. If you've got a question mark next to an old job, bring that too. We'll start making sense of it together. 💛