I wrote about the wisdom of limiting Gannett stock in your 401(k) accounts, given how easy it is to sell and reinvest those shares in other funds. But it bears repeating, now that I've run across several recent comments similar to this: "Can any of you explain how we dump stock from the benefits page? I had a discussion with our business manager, who told me we could sell it. When I acted surprised, they kind of hushed up. So, how do I unload it and how often can I? I am barely contributing anything toward Gannett stock right now."Your response, in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, use this link from a non-work computer; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.
I do this every month. The thing to do is to go to the Hewitt front page. On the middle section under "manager" click on "transfer money". Take your money out of Gannett stock and put it somewhere, anywhere else.
ReplyDeleteDumping your Gannett stock is a matter of a few mouse clicks. And you can do it every time you get paid.
ReplyDeleteGo to www.ybr.com/gannett
You should already have an online account, but if you don't, sign up instantly.
Click on 401(k) benefits "Your Benefits Resources"
Under "Manage," Click on "Transfer Money" link.
On the Transfer Money page, click on "Transfer Money to Individual Funds."
Next page, click on "Percentage"
Hit "continue"
You will see a list of all the 401(k) options and how much you have in each one. Type 100 in the "Transfer Percentage" box next to "Gannett Stock"
Go the bottom of the page and click "continue"
On the next page, you pick where you want the money to go instead.
Fill in the percentage you want to go in whichever fund, go the bottom of the page and hit "Submit."
And you're done.
(NOTE: You need to do some research to figure out the best mix of investments for you. You can do that now or later. If you just want to get out of GCI as fast as possible, then Bonds, Stable Value and Money Market are all very safe but have low returns. And easy mix with beter returns over time is 50-50 Balance and Bonds. In any case, you need to think about this.)
So I left a Gannett paper right at the start of 2008 - getting away from newspapers for the first time in my adult life.
ReplyDeleteFor my 10+ years of work, Gannett gave me a pension of about $25,000 - which I rolled into a simple IRA. (Boy am I glad I left when I did).
But I got at least another $25,000 in my Gannett 401(k). Like 40 cents of it in GCI stock. Should I leave that money in the program? Should I pull it out now and roll it into my new simple IRA?
It all depends on how well you can manage money in your own IRA. That's probably the best to do, but if you aren't a guru at investing the 401k has 11 or 12 mutual funds and other target investment date funds that are good.
ReplyDeleteFor those of you who have left the sinking ship, consider moving your pension and 401k to a Self-Directed IRA as opposed to a traditional IRA. These allow you to purchase non-traditinal investments like real estate, tax liens, personal loans & private businesses as well a typical investments like stocks and mutual funds. Here's a link to the service I used: http://www.guidantfinancial.com/products/self-directed-ira/default.aspx
ReplyDelete