How often do you need to log in to your retirement accounts?

[BashDash]

Hi all!
Thank you for all the help in the past!

MY wife and I are passive investors. My wife is on board with our plan and she setup her automatic roth contributions a couple of years ago. The Vanguard website will automatically increase this based on the tax laws for the year. She does not log in to check on things. Should she? Could the account become inactive? The same goes for her 403b and 457 accounts. We have them on autopilot...she checks the mailings that come but does not log in because she does not want to make any changes. Again...should she? I check mine from time to time but wondering if I should at least have her check once or twice a year by logging on.

THanks!!

[manatee2005]

Hi all!
Thank you for all the help in the past!

MY wife and I are passive investors. My wife is on board with our plan and she setup her automatic roth contributions a couple of years ago. The Vanguard website will automatically increase this based on the tax laws for the year. She does not log in to check on things. Should she? Could the account become inactive? The same goes for her 403b and 457 accounts. We have them on autopilot...she checks the mailings that come but does not log in because she does not want to make any changes. Again...should she? I check mine from time to time but wondering if I should at least have her check once or twice a year by logging on.

THanks!!

When going up. every day. When going down, never.

[Big Dog]

when I was working, I'd check once per year during tax time just to confirm that the last 12 months of activity was as I had planned.

[Pete12]

I login once per month to check that contributions were correctly posted, and to get the individual fund balances to update the spreadsheet I use to track my asset allocation.

[mushripu]

I would confess to obsess over the accounts and check them once a day or so. That is very easy as I have personal capital setup. have never changed allocation on spur of the moment. working on reducing the checking to once a week or less than that as 2021 resolution.
I would suggest checking every month just to make sure it is still there and the crooks did not pilfer away your money. But again if crooks really pilfer it away, would it make any difference knowing that after a month..I dunno.

[Horsefly]

It may sound crazy, but I usually spend 10 minutes with my first cup of coffee EVERY DAY and check our bank accounts (one login), investment accounts (one login), and Chase to see our major credit cards. I don't look much at the details, but just make sure nothing bad has happened (e.g., hacking). I know that isn't what the OP is asking about, but I think it's a reasonable idea. It also lets me know if I need to xfer some more money from Fidelity to my bank if the balance is getting low.

When we travel internationally (hard to believe we once did that fairly often), I obviously don't check it so much. However, I still try login every week or two.

[BashDash]

Thanks for the responses.

Has anyone heard of an account being deemed inactive? I thought I read a post on this a while back but couldn't find it when searching.

[clip651]

If she wants to maintain online access to her accounts, it is likely a good idea for her to log in and just view them (and see that things match up with the printed statements) once or twice a year at least. Monthly would work, too.

If she goes too long without logging in, the company may deactivate her online access. This will vary from one institution to another. It has happened to elderly family members of mine that only used online access very occasionally (not necessarily with Vanguard, I don't recall details). Maintaining online access will be handy if she wants to rebalance, or whatever. Otherwise it may be a bit of a pain to re-establish access depending on the company and their procedures.

Logging in occasionally also confirms that she has access, and not someone else (hacker/identity theft). Setting up account alerts and/or secondary security is also a good practice so that she would be informed if there was unusual activity.

Kudos for having a good passive investing plan!

cj

[livesoft]

My spouse never logs in unless i ask her to. It would be once a year, but her employer makes mistakes and she needs login to change the contribution amount during the year, so maybe 4 times a year?

[celia]

More frequently than usual as I’m in the middle of rebalancing for several relatives and their trusts.

I also sign in to look at the Vanguard website when I want to reply to a Boglehead’s question about their website.

Usually I don’t NEED to sign in. It’s more likely that I WANT to look at something.

[mushripu]

It may sound crazy, but I usually spend 10 minutes with my first cup of coffee EVERY DAY and check our bank accounts (one login), investment accounts (one login), and Chase to see our major credit cards. I don't look much at the details, but just make sure nothing bad has happened (e.g., hacking). I know that isn't what the OP is asking about, but I think it's a reasonable idea. It also lets me know if I need to xfer some more money from Fidelity to my bank if the balance is getting low.

When we travel internationally (hard to believe we once did that fairly often), I obviously don't check it so much. However, I still try login every week or two.

Glad to find at least one more person who checks daily. I have personal capital setup so I just log in one place. Sometimes I do feel uncomfortable that I have that setup and it might be subject to compromise.

[mrmass]

Daily. I login to my brokerage multiple times per day.

[mindboggling]

Retired, here. I look at all my financial accounts every day, but do not react to daily events. If I have new money, I allocate it. But that's it.

[antwerp]

Hi all!
Thank you for all the help in the past!

MY wife and I are passive investors. My wife is on board with our plan and she setup her automatic roth contributions a couple of years ago. The Vanguard website will automatically increase this based on the tax laws for the year. She does not log in to check on things. Should she? Could the account become inactive? The same goes for her 403b and 457 accounts. We have them on autopilot...she checks the mailings that come but does not log in because she does not want to make any changes. Again...should she? I check mine from time to time but wondering if I should at least have her check once or twice a year by logging on.

THanks!!

When going up. every day. When going down, never.

+1

[Peter Foley]

I log in quarterly. I update our asset allocation and check it against our plan. "Need" - not really that often unless there have been very big moves in the market.

[JDCarpenter]

Here is a decent thread from a year ago (with a link back to an earlier extensive thread) on "abandoned" financial accounts and states grabbing then under escheat. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=301995&p=4983395&hi ... t#p4983395

I get DW to log in to her accounts twice a year to guard against this risk. (I monitor all of our accounts daily when we aren't traveling, and periodically even when out of country for months, to check that all transactions are authorized.)

[Wanderingwheelz]

Most of us are looking at our accounts a lot lately. Most who say they aren’t are probably fibbing. Once you get to a certain net worth, days like the ones we have been having lately do something to the chemicals in your brain. . That’s why TSLA stock traded more shares today than the next 10 most active stocks today, combined. People are feeling animal spirits, safe to say.

I actually do not fault myself for being human, so I look a couple times a day normally right at the open and again at the close. That said, when I was building my wealth through my 20s and 30s I didn’t look at my accounts very often at all. There really wasn’t much to see.

I don’t think you have anything to worry about with accounts suffering from being inactive. The less you look during the accumulation phase the better, generally.

[radiowave]

I do my monthly portfolio updates on all accounts. Look at primary brokerage accounts and banks maybe 2-3 times/week. I have all transactions linked to my phone and email so if something is happening, I can see it right away.

[clip651]

Most of us are looking at our accounts a lot lately. Most who say they aren’t are probably fibbing. Once you get to a certain net worth, days like the ones we have been having lately do something to the chemicals in your brain. . That’s why TSLA stock traded more shares today than the next 10 most active stocks today, combined. People are feeling animal spirits, safe to say.

I actually do not fault myself for being human, so I look a couple times a day normally right at the open and again at the close.

Certainly not all of us are looking that frequently! I briefly check the markets many days (is SP 500 up or down, are we near an all time high, do I need to tax loss harvest (TLH), etc). But I only bother to log into accounts once a month or less. I have no need for frequent transactions, nor day to day knowledge of my balances.

As an indexer, I have a good enough idea of how my accounts are doing based on how the indexes are doing. And as a mutual fund holder, looking more than once a day won't tell me anything new, as the balances only update once a day after the markets are closed. And my plan isn't going to change based on day to day fluctuations, aside from catching TLH opportunities.

cj

[livelovelaugh00]

If it is a green day, I log on to my accounts 3 times a day, a quick peek late in the morning and after market close. A more closer look at night. Why not? It makes my happy. If it is a red day, I don't and remind myself, it is long term.

[7eight9]

Thanks for the responses.

Has anyone heard of an account being deemed inactive? I thought I read a post on this a while back but couldn't find it when searching.

Years ago my Schwab checking account was escheated due to inactivity. I only found out about it when I was searching for unclaimed property out of curiousity. These days I use my account so no worries.

[GerryL]

So, she gets her statements by snail mail? I didn't even realize they were still doing that, at least without a fee.

I check my accounts at least once a month to download my statements. Also, in my taxable account I will go in to reinvest dividends. And of course, to do QCDs and take RMDs. I am not on auto RMD distributions.

[Golf maniac]

I log in quarterly. I think it is good to log in periodically just to make sure everything looks okay. I don’t think her account login will become inactive. If it does it is a simple process to reset a password for the account and login.

[theplayer11]

It may sound crazy, but I usually spend 10 minutes with my first cup of coffee EVERY DAY and check our bank accounts (one login), investment accounts (one login), and Chase to see our major credit cards. I don't look much at the details, but just make sure nothing bad has happened (e.g., hacking). I know that isn't what the OP is asking about, but I think it's a reasonable idea. It also lets me know if I need to xfer some more money from Fidelity to my bank if the balance is getting low.

When we travel internationally (hard to believe we once did that fairly often), I obviously don't check it so much. However, I still try login every week or two.

not crazy at all, crazy if you didn't imo

[manatee2005]

Most of us are looking at our accounts a lot lately. Most who say they aren’t are probably fibbing. Once you get to a certain net worth, days like the ones we have been having lately do something to the chemicals in your brain. . That’s why TSLA stock traded more shares today than the next 10 most active stocks today, combined. People are feeling animal spirits, safe to say.

I actually do not fault myself for being human, so I look a couple times a day normally right at the open and again at the close. That said, when I was building my wealth through my 20s and 30s I didn’t look at my accounts very often at all. There really wasn’t much to see.

I don’t think you have anything to worry about with accounts suffering from being inactive. The less you look during the accumulation phase the better, generally.

Where did you find this?

[Wanderingwheelz]

Most of us are looking at our accounts a lot lately. Most who say they aren’t are probably fibbing. Once you get to a certain net worth, days like the ones we have been having lately do something to the chemicals in your brain. . That’s why TSLA stock traded more shares today than the next 10 most active stocks today, combined. People are feeling animal spirits, safe to say.

I actually do not fault myself for being human, so I look a couple times a day normally right at the open and again at the close. That said, when I was building my wealth through my 20s and 30s I didn’t look at my accounts very often at all. There really wasn’t much to see.

I don’t think you have anything to worry about with accounts suffering from being inactive. The less you look during the accumulation phase the better, generally.

Where did you find this?

“TSLA traded an unbelievable $62b worth of shares today, that's more than the 10 next most active stocks combined and double SPY. Outside of "Inclusion Day" (which was arguably shouldn't count) I think this is all-time record for a stock.”. -@ericbalchunas on Twitter

I was mistaken in the way I worded it. It’s still mindboggling.

[aristotelian]

I check all the time. I try to make sure my wife logs in at least annually.

[Monsterflockster]

I login once per month to check that contributions were correctly posted, and to get the individual fund balances to update the spreadsheet I use to track my asset allocation.

This.

[Afty]

My wife forgot about a 401k account for around 4 years. Nothing bad happened. In fact, the returns were quite good during that time.

[JaneyLH]

Hi all!
Thank you for all the help in the past!

MY wife and I are passive investors. My wife is on board with our plan and she setup her automatic roth contributions a couple of years ago. The Vanguard website will automatically increase this based on the tax laws for the year. She does not log in to check on things. Should she? Could the account become inactive? The same goes for her 403b and 457 accounts. We have them on autopilot...she checks the mailings that come but does not log in because she does not want to make any changes. Again...should she? I check mine from time to time but wondering if I should at least have her check once or twice a year by logging on.

THanks!!

When going up. every day. When going down, never.

+1

+2

[CoAndy]

I login once per month to check that contributions were correctly posted, and to get the individual fund balances to update the spreadsheet I use to track my asset allocation.

This. Though I check every two weeks after deposits. Though I have checked every day this week and I have loved what I have been seeing

[capran]

I just finished reading the "Ugh, Vanguard made a huge error" post and comments. People make mistakes. Mistakes can be fixed. So how often you check may be indicative of your comfort in detecting and dealing with errors. Over the years I have had payroll people make mistakes in contributions. I have had banks make mistakes on mortgage payments. And I have had my credit union make a mistake attributing my Roth deposit as a regular IRA deposit (which I was not eligible to do, and did not even have an IRA with that institution). If you are comfortable with not checking, I am jealous of your trust and patience. 40 years ago we were making extra house payments. We had a routine letter that we sent with al payments, stating "attached payment is an additional amount to be applied to principal only". Back then we were not checking monthly and at the end of a year got a statement in the mail saying all those extra payments were posted as future principal and interest payments. (and that was back when interest was 9 1/2 %). They did fix it, as we had documentation. My personality is such that it's better for me to check monthly all accounts: banking, IRA, Roth, Retirement accounts, banking and credit cards.

[SQRT]

I check my portfolio several times a day via Yahoo finance. Check my actual accounts (none are tax advantaged retirement accounts) every few days. Never been a problem or error. Check less when the markets are down of course.

[dcabler]

It may sound crazy, but I usually spend 10 minutes with my first cup of coffee EVERY DAY and check our bank accounts (one login), investment accounts (one login), and Chase to see our major credit cards. I don't look much at the details, but just make sure nothing bad has happened (e.g., hacking). I know that isn't what the OP is asking about, but I think it's a reasonable idea. It also lets me know if I need to xfer some more money from Fidelity to my bank if the balance is getting low.

When we travel internationally (hard to believe we once did that fairly often), I obviously don't check it so much. However, I still try login every week or two.

I do it similarly - I call it my "me time" before the family wakes up and begins to talk, make requests of me, talk about whatever. Mainly a spot check for credit card and bank accounts, but I also update my tracking spreadsheet for our investments daily since my portfolio is spread across multiple accounts at multiple investment houses (IRA, taxable brokerage, HSA, deferred comp, 401K)....

Cheers.

[MikeG62]

Thanks for the responses.

Has anyone heard of an account being deemed inactive? I thought I read a post on this a while back but couldn't find it when searching.

Yup, a lack of activity in the account (including failure to log in) could in some circumstances result in precisely this. I log into all my accounts from time to time (some more often than others), not necessarily for this reason, but it helps to avoid falling into this hole.

WRT your original question, I tend to check them more often when we hit new highs than I do otherwise.

One other data point, I've seen my dad (he's in his 80's) log into his accounts every single day after the market closes when I have been with him. That behavior I don't get, but I guess to each his own.

[MikeG62]

It may sound crazy, but I usually spend 10 minutes with my first cup of coffee EVERY DAY and check our bank accounts (one login), investment accounts (one login), and Chase to see our major credit cards. I don't look much at the details, but just make sure nothing bad has happened (e.g., hacking). I know that isn't what the OP is asking about, but I think it's a reasonable idea. It also lets me know if I need to xfer some more money from Fidelity to my bank if the balance is getting low.

When we travel internationally (hard to believe we once did that fairly often), I obviously don't check it so much. However, I still try login every week or two.

I do it similarly - I call it my "me time" before the family wakes up and begins to talk, make requests of me, talk about whatever. Mainly a spot check for credit card and bank accounts, but I also update my tracking spreadsheet for our investments daily since my portfolio is spread across multiple accounts at multiple investment houses (IRA, taxable brokerage, HSA, deferred comp, 401K)....

Cheers.

Although off topic, I have to +1 for the "me time" in the early morning. Love being the first one up in the morning to do the things I want to do. Typically I get a couple of hours of me time. It goes by fast though.

[Paddygirl]

I check mine every day to make sure I was as happy as yesterday and that this really isn't a mistake.

[Paddygirl]

I check mine every day to make sure I was as happy as yesterday and that this really isn't a mistake.

[jfn111]

Hi all!
Thank you for all the help in the past!

MY wife and I are passive investors. My wife is on board with our plan and she setup her automatic roth contributions a couple of years ago. The Vanguard website will automatically increase this based on the tax laws for the year. She does not log in to check on things. Should she? Could the account become inactive? The same goes for her 403b and 457 accounts. We have them on autopilot...she checks the mailings that come but does not log in because she does not want to make any changes. Again...should she? I check mine from time to time but wondering if I should at least have her check once or twice a year by logging on.

THanks!!

When going up. every day. When going down, never.

+1

[student]

I logged on at least once month to make sure contributions have been made correctly.

[dcabler]

It may sound crazy, but I usually spend 10 minutes with my first cup of coffee EVERY DAY and check our bank accounts (one login), investment accounts (one login), and Chase to see our major credit cards. I don't look much at the details, but just make sure nothing bad has happened (e.g., hacking). I know that isn't what the OP is asking about, but I think it's a reasonable idea. It also lets me know if I need to xfer some more money from Fidelity to my bank if the balance is getting low.

When we travel internationally (hard to believe we once did that fairly often), I obviously don't check it so much. However, I still try login every week or two.

I do it similarly - I call it my "me time" before the family wakes up and begins to talk, make requests of me, talk about whatever. Mainly a spot check for credit card and bank accounts, but I also update my tracking spreadsheet for our investments daily since my portfolio is spread across multiple accounts at multiple investment houses (IRA, taxable brokerage, HSA, deferred comp, 401K)....

Cheers.

Although off topic, I have to +1 for the "me time" in the early morning. Love being the first one up in the morning to do the things I want to do. Typically I get a couple of hours of me time. It goes by fast though.

Very true! If only the working day would go by that fast!

[JackoC]

Hi all!
Thank you for all the help in the past!

MY wife and I are passive investors. My wife is on board with our plan and she setup her automatic roth contributions a couple of years ago. The Vanguard website will automatically increase this based on the tax laws for the year. She does not log in to check on things. Should she? Could the account become inactive?

The problem I've had at banks and credit unions, which could include IRA accounts, is that some now have their cybersecurity set to lock your username/pw if you don't log in, in some cases as often as monthly. Just the other day I had to call one to get it unlocked and generate a new pw. This is different from them actually declaring the account inactive, but it's still a nuisance, a 5 yr CD, but I have to watch paint dry by looking at it monthly.

For a major brokerage it's difficult to believe there would be any issue of 'inactive account' unless you ignored it much more than a year. But I don't really know, nor sure they would disclose their policy to you if you asked. I've never had an issue with rarely used login at a broker, for example an inherited IRA that was 'stranded' at a broker I didn't use otherwise (Schwab, since moved it to get an account opening bonus from somebody else) and I sometimes only logged in annually to do the RMD.

[Broken Man 1999]

If the market is open, I am signed in. I feel it is necessary to ensure my dollars haven't left me to take up with someone else. In about 5 minutes time I know all my credit card accounts, my credit union account, and most important, my Vanguard account is secured.

There is a notion on this board that not peeking at your accounts is a good thing. Not peeking prevents you from changing investments based on various triggers one might believe are useful, but might be more likely to work against you in the long run. This idea was primarily driven by statements from Mr. Bogle. I greatly respect Mr. Bogle, but I think in these times of nefarious activities via the internet, that advice is awful.

I have never understood why looking at your accounts could somehow make you more likely to fiddle with them. As adults, we are constantly tempted (if not tempted, to be offered the opportunity) to do things that would undermine our best interests.

Now, to be sure, I haven't said looking can't cause you to fiddle with your investments, as IIRC there have been some studies indicating people are susceptible. What I DID say is I don't understand. This subject isn't the only observation about human behavior I do not understand. We are all wired differently, I guess.

Broken Man 1999

[JackoC]

If the market is open, I am signed in. I feel it is necessary to ensure my dollars haven't left me to take up with someone else. In about 5 minutes time I know all my credit card accounts, my credit union account, and most important, my Vanguard account is secured.
....
I have never understood why looking at your accounts could somehow make you more likely to fiddle with them. As adults, we are constantly tempted (if not tempted, to be offered the opportunity) to do things that would undermine our best interests.

Good point, there are two issues here not spelled out explicitly in either the question or most of the answers. Seems more people responding assume the issue is behavioral risk of 'over managing' your investments if you look at them too often. But as you say there's also an account security aspect. And personally I feel I have a long enough track record of not making rash decisions that I do not have to put my head in the sand when the market goes down. I am more likely to recalculate and assess everything, changes in allocation caused by market moves etc, when it goes down, because big downs tend to happen and reverse (when they do reverse) more quickly than big ups happen and reverse (when they do).

On security though I prioritize. I log onto certain accounts very often because they have either have a significant % of all assets, or they have a lot of contact with the outside world, ie. checking and credit card accounts. I don't think there's enough security risk in accounts with just a CD representing small % of assets to log on frequently (unless as previously mentioned the bank/CU freezes the login if you don't). In fact some of our CD's are paper only, we have purposely not set up online access, we look at the paper statements.