This letter stated that I may have retirement benefits held in a private retirement account that I guess, out of the goodness of the government's heart, they thought they'd give me a head's up about. Gee, how nice. The report on the account dates back to 1998.
I know I cashed out a 403b from my then-employer just before high tailing it forever to Florida from Rhode Island back in '97, so I'm not sure why there'd be an account reported to the government from that employer in 1998, unless that's the year they filed it in their tax reporting? Not sure. But then it got me thinking back to them days. And that's not easy. I mean, we're talkin' nearly 30 freakin' years!
What if I did have a portion of my 403b left on the table? I mean I know I took about $2,000 and believe you me, my subsequent Corona Summer of 1997 in my new Orlando apartment, living off those proceeds and working only a few days a week, certainly sucked that dry quick quick, but maybe they're was the "employer matching" portion that was separate and I hadn't withdrawn that right away? My memory wants to believe that there was some kinda red tape rigmarole like that where I had to wait to claim that and maybe, after moving and imbibing in all that "liquid golden goodness" where I may have forgotten about it?
So then I thought about the funds I was invested in back then. What if they stayed in those aggressive stock high-risk, yet high-gain potential mutuals and rode it out. Rode out the Dot Com Bubble and the subsequent Dot Com Bust, rode out the 9/11 Dip and rode the economic rally of the early aughts, rode out the Great Recession and rode the subsequent recovery, rode the rise and fall, but, as the indicators, well, indicate, rode the ever rising overall increase of the markets in general for these past 30 years. It wouldn't be outrageous to imagine that an untouched fund would have seen a cumulative gain of 14% in total returns, and on just $2,000...
The letter simply stated that the "plan administrator" was the business I worked for. I know that that business no longer exists, so I checked on a government website that supposedly takes over dead and forgotten retirement accounts that are left in limbo. I put my info in, clicked SEND like I was pulling the handle on a slot machine and crossed my fingers exclaiming COME ON BABY!!
But no such luck.
No match found.
Yeah, had me going for a hot minute there. A hundred grand would be oh so nice.
Made me think of this (and this'll answer your question as to the title of this post):