My Gold IRA rollover took WAY longer than expected. Anyone else?

• •Just wanted to share my experience with a 401k to Gold IRA rollover and see if anyone else had the same timeline.
• •With my pension still a ways off, I wanted to really diversify and get some physical assets as a supplement.
• •Heard a lot of good things about Gold IRAs, especially considering the current inflation fears, so I decided to pull the trigger.

Just wanted to share my experience with a 401k to Gold IRA rollover and see if anyone else had the same timeline. I'd been sitting on a chunk of change in my old government 401k from a previous agency – around $75k – and for the past 6 months, I've been feeling increasingly antsy about the stock market. With my pension still a ways off, I wanted to really diversify and get some physical assets as a supplement. Heard a lot of good things about Gold IRAs, especially considering the current inflation fears, so I decided to pull the trigger.

I started the actual transfer paperwork about 10 weeks ago with a company I found after doing a ton of research. They were super helpful on the phone, explained everything about setting up the self-directed IRA and buying the actual gold and silver. I even decided to throw about $10k of that $75k into silver, just because it felt like a good hedge. They told me it would be about 3-4 weeks for the whole process – liquidating the old 401k, transfer to the new custodian, and then buying/shipping the metals to the depository.

Well, here we are, 10 full weeks later, and I just got confirmation that everything's finally settled and my metals are officially vaulted. My account statement finally looks right. It felt like an eternity, constantly checking my emails and calling up the company for updates. I even started wondering if I'd made a mistake, with my money just floating in limbo for so long. Maybe it's because my old 401k was a government plan, or perhaps it's just the nature of these kinds of transfers right now. My buddy in Phoenix did a similar Roth IRA conversion to gold last year and he said his was much faster.

Has anyone else in the Albuquerque area, or even just general, experienced such a long wait time for their 401k to Gold IRA transfer? What was your timeline like? Just curious if my experience was an outlier or if this is the new normal with all the investment uncertainty pushing more people into precious metals.