I know this new company match s$&ks for us all but take care of your retirement needs and just continue to put as much of your own money in 401K (or Roth 401K). Just friggin’ do it. No one else is gonna do it for you.
So best thing to do I’d you stay here is to treat this new retirement account as part of your bond portfolio (and hope IBM can pay its IOUs) and go equities in 401(K) bad on my allocation preference.
It’s not difficult if you use time to help.
Cheers!
Oh and as far as visibility into RBA account, all we have gotten is vague replies from HR benefits people on the USbenefits Slack site that they are “building it” and it “should” be Vishal’s sometime this year in Q2/Q3 - anyone else have more info than that? I think they also said it would be viable in Fidelity Net Benefits hub for us. Sure would like a vantage at least..shocking how they rolled this out so poorly after axing such a huge benefit.
Of course you cannot rely on a company for your future retirement and always need to take that planning into your own hands regardless. However, losing the 401knis extremely detrimental to future financial growth. Some of us cannot make up for the lost %’s so easily, especially when you are supporting family members also. It was the best perk of IBM, now gone. I went from being able to confidently calculate out my future estimated COL and get assurance that I was MORE than on track to be covered along with efforts of my own on the side with Roth, personal brokerage account etc. last time I met with a money smart coach, they said there is NO way I am now able to retire when I had planned.
So considering now that if I stay at IBM, I now need to magically come up with significantly more money to put aside to make it work- not happening as I truly cannot create more income from thin air, pay all my bills and still have that much extra income to add to my 401k and Roth to feel secure. I really like my team at work so this is such a gutting situation as I feel like I will be financially irresponsible to myself if stay.
Moral: sometimes IBM happens to good teams. What can you do? IBM gonna IBM. I am dreading putting together my portfolio but I guess that’s even more reason to do it. They can only strip so much away and expect us to stay.
I’m not so close to retirement that low bond return RBA would cut it, and I do need income to live on..last time I checked we aren’t exactly getting frequent meaningful raises and promos enough to make up for it. I’m not gonna take on another job also to just stay put.
Now that the new year started, I do not get a notice that I have this new pension account for the renamed 401K match. Will we get some account or at least the balance promised, owed?
I've heard the Weather company colleagues who are soon leaving IBM have 401k match. I'm jealous!
401(k) is a subsection of the US tax code. 401(k) plans only exist in the US, so that policy change only affects US employees.
Why was the 401K change only for US employees. Why didn't IBM change this worldwide?
It’s all about costs and growth. IBM just isn’t growing Ask yourself how many new mainframe or even enterprise power boxes are going in? Not near enough to support IBM’s go to market enterprise hybrid cloud strategy (consulting recommending SW modernization). Does IBM make a LOT of money farming the enterprise accounts? You bet they do, BUT the adoption of enterprise hybrid cloud has a down side, and that is legacy shrink including legacy SW. Because of this, IBM just can’t grow the company because established enterprise customers can only eat so much hybrid offerings per quarter, and with almost zero new enterprise customer coming on line adoption, IBM can’t grow year over year. THUS costs must come down to satisfy IBM’s FCF. IBM isn’t dying, they just are not growing, at least not fast enough to satisfy the street and IBM’s FCF projections. So what does IBM have to do to drive growth. They have to innovate, and that takes money. In the mean time IBM will continue to focus on cutting costs, because that drops right to the bottom line
Anyone who has ever witnessed a dying business can recognize what is going on. Historically, all those uncrossable lines will be crossed, and probably in a very short time. IBM is desperate for cash to keep on operating. The only real issue is what comes next.
IBM is doing whatever it can to reduce US employee count in a cheapest way possible. Eliminating 401k match proved that ibm management has no line it won’t cross.
If one is young (I would say younger than 40) one should be all in equities long term since equities in the long run have outperformed all investment classes over any 20 year period in history. If I’m a young worker I’m definitely looking at all my options given this change
You are right. And if you make two much money to put into an TRA or Roth IRA then consider the back door IRA or better yet the mega back door IRA. Both get money into a Roth IRA for you.
If yo you not know what either are contact AYCO and they will explain it and help you with it