Our Girl had been working at Weldotron for awhile. The 401k became a hot item for retirement planning. One of the honchos at Weldotron decided they’d convert from a defined benefit plan to a define contribution plan. Our Girl was not happy. As a Bell System girl, she knew that pensions were important not to be on dog food in your old age. She knew several retirees who had Bell System pensions and some that didn’t. So working on Wall Street, I told her I’d look into the options, but given the stiff penalties for screwing around with pensions I was confident it was on the up and up.

So the number crunchers went to work. Inventoried everyone who was a participant. Did the age adjusted distribution. Then the you know what hit the fan.

(In a surprising fit pique, Our Girl was upset. One of the women lied about her age when she was employed. So, the woman was three years older than the woman told everyone. Thus, was then entitled to more. When the list was produced, Our Girl, who was younger and worked for them longer, got much less than the “liar”. “The woman should be fired for lying.” No matter who explained, including me, or how many times it was explained, she just refused to accept it. Based on an age adjusted calculation, all employees shared “equally”.)

(Boy, was she pig headed! She ranted on that for years.)

So, then the new plan was “turned on”. I told her that now she had the right to make additional after-tax contributions to her 401k account. She wasn’t to sure about it since NO ONE else was doing it. But, I urged her to do it. (She was still saving in her passbook savings account at this point. Although not too long after this, she went to a money market account.) She went to HR, who went to various honchos, who went to the plan attorney, who went to the plan operator. Once Our Girl was onto something, she was unstoppable. Eventually it was opined that she could contribute proportionally up until the plan hit the “highly compensated executives” limit. Since no one else was doing it, she could essentially put in as much as she wanted. (Even two CPAs didn’t know this, but she did. Thanks to the head of 401k plans at Shearson.)

So, spin the VCR up a decade or a decade and a half, Weldotron was spinning the bowl. And, the 401k has to be shut down. Everyone has to identify where they want to roll it over to. No big deal.

Then about two weeks later, Our Girl gets the mail and finds me grousing how the 401k plan screwed up. “The fools sent me a check.” I looked at it and said: “It says post tax contribution. It’s yours.” “No, it’s wrong.” “OK, call them”.

(She calls. Long conversation.)

She calls to me in tears. (You know “my dog died” level of crying.) I asked: “What’s wrong?” I literally had no idea what could possibly be wrong.

“It’s mine. I can’t take it. It’s too much money. How could that be?”

I explain compound returns during a hot market over decades!

“What will I do?”

“Whatever you want, hon. It’s yours.”

“Let’s give ⅓ away. Save a ⅓. And go to Vegas with the rest.”

So that’s what she did. It was a great trip! But we didn’t spend anywhere near a ⅓. It was a BIG check.

(It was very cute. Guess you really had to be there.)

# # # # #