About six years ago, I worked part time at a local middle school in their after school program. And when I say part time, I mean like four to eight hours a week, so not a lot of money. Everyone who works at that school district was automatically enrolled in a FICA alternative retirement plan at 7.5%.
When I quit, I had $81.66 in my account. I figured I could leave the money there and it would appreciate in value. I didn't have a 401k to move it to, and wasn't sure what all the fees were with just taking it out.
And then I forgot about it... until yesterday. While cleaning out one of my folders with old investment material, I found a letter from them with my final balance. It took a while, but I figured out my login and opened my account expecting to find that my $81.66 had grown to $130+.
My retirement account after 6 years left untouched was now worth $72.13.
Which is pretty shitty for me, but I feel even worse for all the teachers who are invested in the exact same plan and literally losing money every year. You'd literally be in a better spot in just a couple years by paying the taxes and investing in an index fund than using their retirement plan.
So here's a reminder to keep an eye on all of your various investment accounts and to help out your friends and family who might not know how their plans work (like I didn't when I was a sophomore in college).
Submitted February 13, 2017 at 11:54AM by SH92 http://ift.tt/2kCId1a
