401k to Gold IRA - my recent rollover experience & timeline (warning: not as quick as I hoped!)
- •Figured it might help some of you out there wondering what to expect.
- •I started the process in late March.
- •My Gold IRA company was great about explaining everything and getting the paperwork sent over.
Just went through the whole 401k to Gold IRA rollover song and dance, and wanted to share my experience, particularly on the timeline, because it wasn't quite the instant gratification I was picturing. Figured it might help some of you out there wondering what to expect. My old 401k was sitting pretty (or not so much, depending on the day!) with about $750k in it from my dairy co-op days, mostly invested in the usual mutual funds.
I started the process in late March. My Gold IRA company was great about explaining everything and getting the paperwork sent over. Had all that signed and sent back within a couple of days. The real hold-up, as many of you probably know, was my old 401k provider. They wanted blood, sweat, and a notarized kidney stone apparently. Took them a good two weeks just to process the initial request to initiate the direct rollover. Then another week for them to actually cut the check. I was calling them every other day from my tractor, trying to speed things up, but they just kept giving me the "it's in process" line.
Once the check was finally in the mail (snail mail, of course, because why would anything dealing with your retirement be electronic?), it took another 5 business days to get to the Gold IRA custodian. Once they received it and cleared it, which thankfully only took a couple of days, the funds were available to purchase the metals. From my first call to my Gold IRA company to actually having the gold and silver allocated was almost exactly 5 weeks. A bit longer than I anticipated, especially since I was hoping to get some metals locked in before the market got too squirrely. For those who've done this, is that a typical timeline? Did anyone have a much quicker experience, or were you stuck in similar bureaucratic molasses?
Overall, glad I did it. Living here in Wisconsin, you learn to appreciate things that can weather a storm, and I feel a lot better having a chunk of my retirement in something tangible. Just wish the transfer part was as straightforward as milking a cow. Anyway, good luck to anyone else on this journey. Any tips for someone new to holding actual physical gold and silver? What are your thoughts on storage options versus just having it in the vault with the custodian?