How To Rollover 401K Funds Into an IRA

Rolling your 401K into an IRA is one of the smartest things you can do with a retirement plan. The cleverest thing, of course, is being astute enough to sign up for your company's 401K plan. You were smart, and signed up for your company's 401K, however, you are now leaving the company, and therefore, your job. To avoid paying the taxes you would incur by cashing out your 401K money, you want to rollover your 401K into an IRA by following these steps below:

1. Choose a bank, brokerage firm or mutual fund company to rollover your 401K into. The financial institution you choose will give you a form that authorizes a direct rollover once you open the account. Do not forget to fill out the form authorizing your rollover. When you open an account, be aware that all financial institutions (banks, brokerages and mutual funds) must comply with the U.S. Patriot Act. This means you will be asked for your name, address, date of birth and other information to verify who you are.

2. Read your 401K plan literature to determine if your 401K charges a fee for either selling funds in your account or for an outgoing account transfer. If your 401K charges a fee for an outgoing account transfer, ask your new IRA custodian if they will pay that fee for you.

3. You may be able to transfer existing mutual funds in your 401K to an IRA at a brokerage firm. But in order for this to occur, both the brokerage and 401K must allow it. Be aware that a lot of brokerage funds only accept cash. Call your old 401K plan as well as your new IRA custodian to inquire if this is permissible. If it is not allowed, your mutual funds must be liquidated.

4. Make sure the check from your 401K is deposited in your chosen bank, brokerage or mutual fund IRA within 60 days of the date it is sent out. Call your IRA custodian to make sure your funds have arrived. Although it is rare, 401K funds can sometimes be sent to the wrong account or wrong location.

Once your 401K has been rolled over into an IRA, you can breathe a sigh of relief. You have made a great decision to transfer your 401K into your IRA fund. The money in your IRA will grow tax free until your retirement, and hopefully provide you the funds to have a prosperous retirement.

How To Buy Gold (Bullion, Bars, Coins)

The desire to buy gold is not hard to understand; compared to other valuable substances, there is precious little gold in the world. And with its undeniably brilliant sheen and deep, rich tones, it's also easy to understand the appeal of owning gold as a tangible, physical investment. At its best as an investment, gold is both physical and very liquid (it can be bought and sold fluidly). But you can buy gold in different forms (bullion, bars, coins, jewelry etc.), and these forms tend to differ in their liquidity.

Gold is a hot item for several reasons right now. For one thing, gold production is either flat or falling around the world. Inflation, flat supply and prevailing uncertainty in other investments is driving the price of gold ever higher.

Here are some considerations to make when deciding how to buy gold. If you want a truly comprehensive guide to buying gold in this financial climate, I strongly recommend Jeff Sneeringer's "How To Buy Gold Low" - he's got 20 years of experience and shares how he's learned to buy gold at half the spot price, even today.

1. Do you ever envision wanting to sell the gold, or do you buy gold strictly for personal enjoyment? If your aim is to buy gold strictly for personal enjoyment, then likely you're looking at jewelry or collectible gold coins (unless, like me, you enjoy swimming in heaps of gold bullion... if this is the case, I recommend the pure gold American Buffalo coinage - I wouldn't want to come in close contact with any alloys). Jewelry is the most readily available form of buyable gold, but also the one with the least liquidity; resell value will hardly ever be as high as the original price you paid to buy the gold, and there's no guarantee that anyone will like the style of the jewelry as much as you did. Collectible gold coins, however, are uniform and their gold quality and content guaranteed. Selling gold as a collectible coin will be easier. For some, that will influence their decision as they figure out how to buy gold. But let's face it, gold jewelry will carry a sentimental value that could never be calculated anyway. Just keep in mind that when you sell gold jewelry, you probably won't get back the money you spent.

2. If you buy gold as an investment that should be liquid, how easily will you be able to guarantee the content and quality of the gold? We've already explored jewelry. Now let's look at what to expect when you buy gold bullion -- gold bars and coins whose quantity and quality of gold are known and undisputable -- as well as when buying gold stock.
Gold stocks are actually stocks in a gold mining company. So when you buy gold stocks, you don't exactly buy gold. Your risks are different with stocks than when you buy gold coins or bars for example, but there are certainly still risks to this gold investment. For example, no gold mine can know with absolute certainty the amount of gold still to be found in their mine. It's a gamble...

As long as we're talking about making money in the stock market, did you know that two geeks in Florida (one a former Goldman Sachs wiz) have developed a robot that can predict penny stocks that will rapidly double? It's legal, and amazing, and you are not going to believe your eyes: Doubling Stocks.

Unless you live in a part of the world where there is a high demand for gold among jewelers who wish to make jewelry from it, your ability to sell gold bars will be less than your ability to sell gold as coins. This translates to lower probability that you will profit from your investment, something to consider as you buy gold. The primary reason for this is that the gold in gold bars doesn't bear a governmental guarantee of quality and quantity, while gold bullion does. Gold in bar form is an easier target for tampering as well - only an experienced dealer employing meticulous examination can tell whether a gold bar is indeed solid gold, as opposed to a gold shell filled with a non-precious heavy metal. Many are fooled into buying gold bars that still bear their marks but are nevertheless devoid of gold. You may know that your gold bar is sound - and that's excellent. But even if you know it, when the time comes to sell gold bars, you may have to pay for the examination fees to prove gold value to a skeptical dealer. And if that's the level of skepticism you can expect when a gold bar is marked, imagine what you might face if you're trying to sell a "hidden"(unmarked) gold bar!
When you buy a gold bar, don't commit until the dealer has proven to you that the gold bar is solid and true. Can the dealer prove the quality and quantity of the gold? Can you trust the dealer? Don't buy gold from an untrustworthy dealer!

Gold bullion, then, is the most guaranteed and, therefore, most liquid form of gold. If your idea behind buying gold is to ultimately sell it, then it's wise to buy gold bullion. It's easy to buy gold this way and easy to sell it around the world -- one of the smarter gold investments all-round.
But where to buy? You can buy online from gold bullion dealers. On your preferred search engine, look for "gold bullion" or "gold dealers." If you have a particular kind in mind - like the American Eagle gold coins, or the Maple Leaf (Canadian gold coins) or Krugerrand, to name a few of the most popular gold coins - then do a search for that particular coin or gold coin dealers. Or find the governmental mint websites. For example, check out the South African Mint, U.S. Mint or Royal Canadian Mint. When you want to buy gold, these sites all contain helpful tools for finding local and international dealers of gold coins.

3. How much money is available for you to buy gold? Gold bullion and jewelry, once again, will be available at the greatest range of prices when you buy gold. To buy a 1 kg gold bar, you'll need more than $10,000, and buying a large gold bar will require more than ten times that amount (it contains more than ten times the amount of gold, after all). You pay less buying gold bars than you would for the equivalent amount of gold coins, but as we explored earlier, selling gold bars presents unique challenges. What you save can get spent proving the value of your gold.

4. What is gold's current price per Trojan ounce? When buying gold, always make note of the current price of gold. If you plan to buy or sell gold, you can access this information at the Gold Fixing of London, where the standard gold price today is set twice. Though you should shop around and look for the lowest price from a reputable dealer, you should generally expect to buy gold for a little above the standard price from a dealer, and when you decide to sell gold, you may have to sell for a little under the standard price. People buy gold and sell it in swarms, a phenomenon dealers have learned to detect. So if you buy gold and later want to sell it, be prepared to lose a small amount of money if you simply wait until the standard price per ounce is back at the level at which you bought gold.