<p>We have a few mutual funds that we had started in the 90’s, but had stopped contributing since early 2000 when we moved to a bigger house and some other expenses also increased, including saving for my kids’ college education. A couple of them only valued around $10k. Will it be advisable to sell some of them so I have less to deal with. After reading the last few posts, consolidation may not be a bad idea. I understand that I have to pay long term capital gains when I sell. If these funds are so old, how do I determine the cost basis? </p>
<p>“So if heaven forbid he dies before me (I’ll kill him)”</p>
<p>That’s a classic line I’m going to have to remember. If you die before me, I’m going to kill you!</p>
<p>@hopeful820, are the older mutual funds all housed in one firm (e.g., Vanguard, Fidelity, etc.) or are they all over the place? Are they taxable (so you’d have to pay capital gains) or are they tax-deferred?</p>
<p>You don’t want consolidation to incur tax costs. </p>
<p>I have most of our money in a few places, but what matters more is that I have everything recorded in Quicken, and my safety deposit box contains the Quicken password and also the master password for my password-manager (I use RoboForm, but there are other good ones also). My wife or kids can find all the accounts, account numbers, passwords, balances, etc. </p>
<p>Btw, if the house burns down, I have automated daily backups of my PC files to the cloud, with instructions on how to use the restore feature also in the box. </p>
<p>Eta: the mutual fund company should be able to give you the cost basis if you just bought and never sold any. If you did sell, you’d have know if you used FIFO, average cost, specific lots, etc. </p>
<p>DH maintains a spreadsheet (pw protected) with all acct#, balances, passwords, charts etc. Those darned passwords change a lot, but the more critical thing is the static account#. </p>
<p>We also have a binder with info on the various insurance policies. Recently we wrote a new will, but most assets pass to the spouse (or kids eventually) via joint accts and/or beneficiary designation. </p>
<p>lxnaybob, they are all taxable and yes I have to pay capital gain tax when I sell, they are various companies like Fidelity, T Rowe Price etc. so yes, it is all over the place. Well, since I am technologically challenged, I still have the paper statements, talk about clutter, but like colorado_mom said, those damn passwords, just for my e-mails, bank accounts, health benefit accounts, often times I forget which password I used for which account!</p>
<p>Since I just recently retired as of July 1st, now I have all the time in the world so I should get my act together, go through my old fashion file cabinet and pull all the account information and make a chart of everything! </p>
<p>Yup, busdriver, thats been my standard line. “If you die before me, I’ll kill you”. I didn’t marry a young 'un for no reason 
</p>
<p>State income tax-Ouch CA and HI! </p>
<p>@hopeful820, you might be get a fair amount of help from calling those holders of the funds. You probably had dividends reinvested, which makes computing the basis by hand more difficult, but which their systems probably know. </p>
<p>I think it’s worth buying a copy of Quicken and “Quicken for Dummies” (no insult intended, the Dummy books are actually well-written). </p>
<p>My husband let me do all the investing so I might have to write down instructions to one of my kids to help him. I doubt that he remembers what to do, his mom didn’t either. I have kept all the corresponding in the last ten years of everything, so at least there are paper trails.</p>
<p>If you have enough and don’t want to pay taxes but want to simplify, you can gift to your kids or a donor advised fund some of your appreciated assets scattered here and there and NOT have to pay taxes on them. Your loved one gets your basis but if you’ve held it for over a year, it would be a LTCG for him/her and NOT you. For donor advised funds, NO ONE pays taxes on any appreciation, as long as you held the asset over a year.</p>
<p>If your kiddo is like mine and in a very ylow (0%) tax bracket, s/he won’t pay capital gains taxes either, so you can gift more to kiddo if you use appreciated assets since neither of you need to pay capital gains taxes on LTCG. Just another thought to consider. We are thinking of giving D some appreciated assets, since she has no income at the moment and we have no idea when she’ll start earning any. Even when she does, it probably won’t be much and she will continue to be in a lower tax bracket than we are.</p>
<p>After I spent a year clearing up all various accounts of parents, I brought everything to local Fidelity office. I still have individual stocks, but now everything under roof of Vanguard and Fidelity. I had to order 20 death certificates for mom, but probably only a few needed for me. Same for son and sibs.</p>
<p>Hopeful820, can you transfer funds in kind? When we consolidated, we transferred funds to account without liquidating, no gains/losses no taxes. As I get older, it is getting harder to keep track of different accounts. As soon as we are fully retired, we will just have one account.</p>
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<p>I’ve done something similar … not quite as successful talking Mom3ToGo into simplifying things … but we have 1/3rd as many companies we deal with than we did 5 years ago …and we’ve eliminated almost all the small investment buckets. The old way wasn’t that much more of a hassle … although it was a lot more statements. That said it will be TONS easier for whoever follows me.</p>
<p>I’m the executor for my parents estate and they have done fine and barring a total disaster will be passing along a nice nest egg to my sister and I … (nothing like really big money but they got to where they are not spending principal to finance their retirement). My Mom has Alzheimer’s and my dad is 85 and getting a bit cranky … why does this matter? My parents have investments in a ton of different things including a 80% of the investment firms being really small investments. And now with my Dad at 85 I can not convince my Dad to simplify any of this stuff … or to chase down any missing information … he can’t be bothered at this point (which I am fine with). So it’s going all land on me … chasing down forms and missing info to close out a bunch of $1k-$5k investment. What a pain in the ass that could have been avoided. When the time comes hopefully I can talk to my sister about how far I need to go to get everything “right” before closing things out.</p>
<p>So for me … I want things simple and complete before I get to the point where I can’t be bothered to work at it.</p>
<p>When my father passed away, I found accounts all over the place. As he died suddenly, he didn’t get a chance to tell us where everything was. I had find them as my mother got statements from each institution. It took me 3 months to consolidate everything into 2 accounts for my mom. I did transfer in kind, so we didn’t have to liquidate.</p>
<p>@iglooo - if these are mutual funds in different mutual fund families, then, no, they cannot be transferred in kind.</p>
<p>I believe you are thinking of brokerage accounts holding individual securities.</p>
<p>@Dadinator, I think some companies will allow transferring mutual funds. Fidelity, for example, will allow you to hold Vanguard funds (investor class, not admiral class (super low ER)). It can’t hurt to ask them. </p>
<p>Vanguard allwed us to transfer admiral shares. They required a higher minimum for admiral class at a non-Vanguard firm. We had about half and half in individual securities and in mutual funds. Some of the mutual funds were quite obscure, not Fidelity/T-Row/Vanguard/Pimco. We had no problem transferring them all. If you go with a big brokerage firm that supports just about everything in the market, it should be no problem.</p>
<p>So H and I had a 1 hour walk last night and we discussed what we would like to do in retirement. He wants to putter around the house - since I am just re-entering the work force and we have not really seen a lot of the country, my suggestion was to get a small pull behind camper (with nice slide-outs) and take time when we are healthy, to visit various state and national parks, do hiking, sightseeing etc. So ‘planting the seed’. H may retire before me so he can get his ‘puttering’ out of his system. I do think we will also need to see where DDs land and where siblings are. H’s parents are now 85 - who knows what will happen with them (there is family longevity on both sides). H talked about how so many people want to travel, travel, travel - I said yes, they want to travel while they are healthy enough to do so.</p>
<p>I believe our finances are fine when we get to retirement 9 years out for H. Getting back to a job will help boost us tremendously, because our spending will primarily be on home improvement (all consideration for resale), the rest for emergency fund and saving. H thinks paying the get ceilings smooth (from current popcorn) is wasting money (sigh) - so updates on the house will be an education process. I guess we will have to go to some new home open houses…The popcorn ceilings are going to be with some of my early paychecks - I have current workers that do a good job at a fair price. I probably will have DD2 discuss home cosmetics with H - he may listen better to her (she is quite a stylist - dresses well, room modern, always looking at ideas on Pinterest).</p>
<p>The Vanguard funds were all inherited. They were far too diversified for my taste, so simplified that.</p>
<p>As mentioned, Fidelity office is close by. We transferred all the other mutual funds and stocks to them. I don’t have to worry about stock certificates any more. </p>
<p>SOS, after last hurricane, I had to replace my floors (water came in thru door). That was my opportunity to paint interior and get rid of the popcorn. Roof leaks had caused some discoloration. Each year since son left college I’ve done some piece of home improvement. The Bag a Week club has me tackling a closet or so every weekend. I don’t want to be overwhelmed if I decide to downsize or my relatives have to clean up my house when I’m gone.</p>
<p>@bookworm sorry you had such a massive unplanned home improvement project, but now you can enjoy your hard work in seeing the rehab through.</p>
<p>Our family room got spruced up in Dec when a plumbing weld gave way and slowly leaked water in the corner of the family room (the other side of the wall is utility room with a water heater). We put in wood floor and am able to use persian rug from my parents’ living room - wonderful improvement of the room. Also using parents’ coffee table and end tables that were crafted in dad’s cabinet shop (he owned a construction co). I love having so many things from my parents’ home - four siblings and their offspring didn’t want a lot (no room, distance, downsizing themselves, etc). Interestingly, the water heater (22 years old, put in when we built the house) died a few months ago (leaked onto concrete floor, only getting a few boxes wet) and DH was able to put in new electric water heater himself (prior one was gas, so new gas water heater more expensive and would have needed tradesman to install). We also may remodel and where gas water heater was vented to may be in the 2nd floor remodel area. Some of our crew from Dec is who I want to have come back for the popcorn ceilings.</p>