Case study: My 401 K and IRA account management

Dec. 25, 2018

Introduction

It is important for me to find out how to improve my management skills. I like to work on my person asset first. I like to write a blog to document my management performance, and I like to push myself to dedicate time, specially holiday season one week break from Dec. 24 to Dec. 31 to do personal finance education, and case studies.

Case study

Here are the facts to document my investment.

Based on my W3 from 1999 to 2001, I invested money from paycheck to my 401 K account.

1999 Atlantic Entertainment $1880
2000 Atlantic Entertainment $3610
2000 Trendium                        $650
2001 Trendium                      $5490
2004 IRA deposit                  $3000

total deposit: $14700

The value in my New York community bank IRA CD in 2018 December is $19300.00

I did have loss in stock market and then I moved everything to IRA CD from 2008. Total income after 18 years is $4600.00 dollars.

If I only count those $10,000 401 contribution from 1999 to 2001, then after 18 years, $4600 return will be only average 2% a year.

I need to figure out how to manage my asset better. I should spend time to search ideas how to manage better on my IRA CD.

Actionable Items

One of ideas is to sell $10000.00 in 2008, and then pay 10% penalty, and pay tax, and then purchase a property in the city of Yichun.

I went back to China and changed my status from H1-B to F1 visa. I should prepare myself better in terms of finance. At that time, I was told to work on English test IELTS for immigration to Canada.

I need to spend time to work on my asset carefully every year. I have to push myself to find ideas how to manage.

One of ideas is to move money to stock account I had, and purchased dividend stocks, like MSFT. At that time, Microsoft stock was lowest price around $20.00 to $40.00, dividend will be more than I can get from the interest.

One of ideas is to purchase low cost vanguard index fund in 2010.

Follow up 

Jan. 20, 2019 7:06 PM
In 2019 new year day, I did whole day personal finance research. I found out that in 2001 I sold VIGRX $3000 mutual fund in 2002, with a loss of $1000. I totally forgot it from 2002 to 2019. I documented the transaction in my blog.

I did not review my finance every day. I found the records in my FAU web page. I learn that the index fund should worth $10,000 dollars if I did not sell in 2002.

Follow up 

April 14 ,2019

I think that I should put those fund into bond market, and then when the market has recession, I will put them into Vanguard total market index fund, or a few other Vanguard index fund.