I have converted

I finally converted my rollover IRA into a Roth!!! I figured I would take care of that now, since my numbers are considerably lower than what I started with. And as far as I know, you only have to pay taxes on what you have in the account, not what you originally put into it. I had to open a brand new account and transfer the entire fund over, so I thought they would liquidate it and I would buy into the stock again. But that's not how it works; they just switched the whole thing as is. That's good, because I'll keep exactly the same amount of stock. So now my money can grow and I won't have to pay any taxes on it in 40+ years when I retire!

Ouch!

The stock market? Seriously? I just lost around $300 in 2 weeks, and I know that's paltry compared to what most people have lost. Good thing I don't need that money for another forty years-- I feel bad for the older people who need it soon. In all honesty, I am starting to get pretty nervous about this, especially since people are going absolutely crazy and making everything worse. Have they learned nothing from our country's history? But I guess there's not too much I can do about it, so we'll see how it pans out in the next few months I guess. Hopefully it will at least stabilize soon!

It's funny how things work out sometimes

I'm not really sure if this qualifies as bragging, but I finally bought a mutual fund for my IRA. I put the order through Sunday night, and it went through Monday afternoon... after the huge drop. So basically I was able to buy a lot more shares, dirt cheap. That certainly makes me happy! Now all I have to do is sit back, wait, and hope that things with the market get better eventually.

IRA

I just opened my new IRA account! Since I am leaving my job, I decided to take my 401k with me and put it into an IRA. This way, I can keep adding to it and invest however I want to. I don't have a whole lot of money in it right now, but I think it'll be good to get it in some funds while the stock market is down, so I can get lots of shares on the cheap. Then once all the money rolls over, I want to turn it into a Roth. It was cool-- the guy I called to set all this up was so nice, and he really helped me out with all my questions. Now all I have left to do is fill out the paperwork I got from HR and give that back, to have all my funds emptied out and my 401k closed. I really hope all this goes smoothly!