redbird | retirement/financial stuff (Reply)

cattitude and I have been talking to a financial planner (over the phone and zoom). In the course of yesterday's conversation, he said he couldn't find some of the information that I was pretty sure was on the TIAA-CREF paperwork we'd sent him.(TIAA-CREF send me a quarterly report on my retirement savings, broken down in various ways, which I glance at and drop on my desk, then shred when the next quarter's report arrives.)

So, I contacted TIAA-CREF to ask them to confirm that I was reading the thing correctly. Before answering any of my questions, the person I was chatting with said that she'd noticed I didn't have beneficiaries on some of my accounts. (For reasons, the money I have there is divided into several different accounts, all of which are in my name.) When I said "I'll deal with that later, today I want to know..." she dropped information on how to set/change beneficiaries in the chat window.

I did get the information I needed, which included that I was confused because they're using "annuity" on that report to mean any of the money a person has invested for retirement, which is not what it usually means.

The person I spoke to was correct that I should have designated beneficiaries, and I have no idea why I had that for some of my accounts but not others. So, this morning, I went back to their website, and listed

cattitude and

adrian_turtle as the beneficiaries for all of my accounts, in case there's money left when I die. I should also update my will, but that will take longer, if only because assigning/changing beneficiaries for my retirement accounts doesn't require people other than the beneficiaries to sign as witnesses.