REMINDER FOR ALL CVS RPHs -- Transition to Vanguard is this week.

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WVUPharm2007

WVUPharm2007

imagine sisyphus happy
Verified Member
Pharmacist
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Don't forget to log in and set up your new Vanguard 401k account! I just logged into Vanguard and it looks like it's all available to view and play around with. You can't move money around yet, however. If you try, it will tell you that you can't yet. It automatically linked my 401k and Vanguard Roth IRA, which I thought was cool.
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INVESTMENT NOVICES: If you have no idea how to set up a portfolio and have no interest in learning, consider putting all of your money into the Retirement Target Date Fund (in Vanguard it just says Target Date 20XX.) It is a "set it and forget it" fund that will adjust your account mix over time automatically. It only costs 0.21% (which isn't that expensive) and will enable you to not have to learn anything about investing. New grads, if you max out your 401k starting in your mid-20s, put all of your money into this fund, by the time you are 60, you will be worth millions. Making a nice nest egg for yourself is literally that easy. Log in and do it. Trust Mikey here.
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For everyone else, it looks like we get the same selection of individual funds as before. For instance, the large cap growth is still that T Rowe Price/Columbus Circle/Melon fund from the old Future Fund. Which I think is weird. I don't get why they are moving to Vanguard, yet not letting us have access to whatever Vanguard fund we want to have access to. The only exception is that all of the aggressive/moderate/conservative funds have transferred to target date funds.
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Disclaimer: The Content in this post is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Nothing contained in this post or follow up posts constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, or endorsement.
All information in this thread is of a general nature and does not address the circumstances of any particular individual or entity. Nothing in this thread constitutes professional and/or financial advice, nor does any information in the thread constitute a comprehensive or complete statement of the matters discussed or the law relating thereto. You alone assume the sole responsibility of evaluating the merits and risks associated with the use of any information or other Content on the thread before making any decisions based on such information or other Content.
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Thank you for this post! While not a pharmacist yet, I do work for the company. I usually have my father in law (retired accountant) go over my selections to make sure they are correct / look good. I'll try to log in today to see what it did with my selections.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
For those of you paying 0.5-1% of fees (either thru asset under management or expense ratio). Think again.

This is a good calculator for anyone to see the impact of paying high fees.
Why Robo-Advisor Fees Are Much Worse Than They Seem | The Measure of a Plan
Keep your fees around 0.2% or get raped without knowing...

1.png
 
Momus said:
For those of you paying 0.5-1% of fees (either thru asset under management or expense ratio). Think again.

This is a good calculator for anyone to see the impact of paying high fees.
Why Robo-Advisor Fees Are Much Worse Than They Seem | The Measure of a Plan
Keep your fees around 0.2% or get raped without knowing...

View attachment 247714
Click to expand...

Thankfully, none of the funds available are that expensive. Again, the Vanguard Target Date funds are right around 0.20%, which is completely reasonable given that they are sort of soft-managing it for you as you get closer to retirement.
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
Thankfully, none of the funds available are that expensive. Again, the Vanguard Target Date funds are right around 0.20%, which is completely reasonable given that they are sort of soft-managing it for you as you get closer to retirement.
Click to expand...

Jealous, our target date fund fees are double that. I just don't understand why large corporations allow their workers to get fleeced by exorbitant fees. I try to bring it up with HR and its like trying to rationalize with a brick wall.
 
my 401k loan repayment is shorted by $2,000 during the transfer process. now i have to keep calling and fighting for that $2,000..
 
Nice, just moved everything into a target retirement fund. I like to keep things simple.
 
Vanguard is actually giving me the option to buy other funds through the website whereas the old FF website didn't appear to have that option. However the index funds do have lower expense ratios (0.09-0.11%) compared to the target retirement funds (0.18-0.22%)
 
Sine Cura said:
Vanguard is actually giving me the option to buy other funds through the website whereas the old FF website didn't appear to have that option. However the index funds do have lower expense ratios (0.09-0.11%) compared to the target retirement funds (0.18-0.22%)
Click to expand...

All the retirement target date funds consist of is Vanguard's total stock market and total international stock market with a bond index. It a very simple fund.

If you really want to go as cheap as possible, you could basically cobble together the same thing as the target date fund by going heavily Core Equity, which is just an S&P 500 fund (0.08% expense ratio) and International Equity Index Fund (0.11%) with a bit of Mid Cap Index (0.10%) and Small Cap Index (0.10%) and a small percentage of US Bond Index (0.09%). Doing this would save you ~ 0.1% points. Which, honestly, even after 40 years, wouldn't amount that that much. But I guess you could buy a Mercedes C-Class with the difference in the year 2050 or so.


I've actually decided to be like mentos up there. I'm just going with a majority in the target date fund with a bit in small cap growth and large cap growth because I like both of those funds. I'm setting it and forgetting it. My hope is that I only look at it once a year or so. The best way to screw everything up is messing with it.
 
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sosoo said:
my 401k loan repayment is shorted by $2,000 during the transfer process. now i have to keep calling and fighting for that $2,000..
Click to expand...

Mine is also short my first contribution of 1700$.

Did you get anywhere with this?
 
Members don't see this ad :)
So no point using the Vanguard Managed Program essentially...
 
StallionRx said:
Mine is also short my first contribution of 1700$.

Did you get anywhere with this?
Click to expand...

they say to keep checking back each week. within 3 weeks they hope to receive the fund. but for now they don't have clarity.
 
Target date funds are too conservative for me. I want 10% only in bonds. Maybe not even that much. I have target date funds for my kids 529 plans though.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
 
ChalupaBatman86 said:
Target date funds are too conservative for me. I want 10% only in bonds. Maybe not even that much. I have target date funds for my kids 529 plans though.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
Click to expand...
Target date fund 2050+ has 10% bonds. It will increase bond allocation the closer you are to your retirement year.

If you don't want increasing allocation to bond as you get closer to retirement, pick the furthest target date funds (2065) and move money to even further target date fund every 15 yrs. You will always have 10% fixed to bond that way.
 
Interesting, I chose Target date 2050 which is 10% bonds but their recommendation for my age is 100% stocks.
 
Thank you for this reminder! As a former CVS employee with money still in Future Fund, I would have been completely baffled when I went to login next time.
 
When choosing my paycheck deduction it gives me 4 options...

401(K) SAVINGS
ROTH
ANNUAL INCENTIVE
ROTH ANNUAL INCENTIVE

What is annual incentive and roth annual incentive? I was thinking that it is just the match but why does it let me choose a percent for it? And why would there be two options for the match since both just go under the "Safe Harbor Match"?
 
SCRph2014 said:
Thank you for this reminder! As a former CVS employee with money still in Future Fund, I would have been completely baffled when I went to login next time.
Click to expand...

I'm kinda in the same boat... tried to log on today, the Future Fund site is no longer available... how else do we access the funds?
 
You should have a way to log into myHR as a former colleague. I think starting there may be your best bet. If I have any downtime tomorrow, I can see if I can find anything more concrete.
 
hye345 said:
I'm kinda in the same boat... tried to log on today, the Future Fund site is no longer available... how else do we access the funds?
Click to expand...
Call vanguard. Maybe it automatically transferred.
 
My old 401k was with vanguard and I can see it when i log in. I was wondering if there was any need to do a roll over?
 
Sooo....is anyone else part time and all of a sudden received access to a 401k? My wife is casual part time and Vanguard sent her a letter welcoming her to the Future Fund. I logged into her myHR and sure enough, she's completely set up with a Vanguard account. Is this a new policy? Do non-salaried workers have 401k, too?

I'm going to set it to 5% and see if CVS matches. This might be totally awesome for me. If I could throw another $18,500 a year tax free into the pot, that would rock. That would alter my road map. Instead of paying off the mortgage next, I might fill up this new tax advantaged savings vector first. Or maybe mix and match. What a great problem to have.
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
Sooo....is anyone else part time and all of a sudden received access to a 401k? My wife is casual part time and Vanguard sent her a letter welcoming her to the Future Fund. I logged into her myHR and sure enough, she's completely set up with a Vanguard account. Is this a new policy? Do non-salaried workers have 401k, too?

I'm going to set it to 5% and see if CVS matches. This might be totally awesome for me. If I could throw another $18,500 a year tax free into the pot, that would rock. That would alter my road map. Instead of paying off the mortgage next, I might fill up this new tax advantaged savings vector first. Or maybe mix and match. What a great problem to have.
Click to expand...

Hi, how much can one max out on 401k? Is it 5% of bi weekly (now soon to be semi monthly) paystub? Mid 20s now haven’t started contributing to 401k yet. What if I were to leave cvs in future, those founds would be transferred able to a diff company including the company match?


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
You can do $19,000 a year. Company MATCH maxes at 5%. Keep in mind no matter how much they match, you can put in $19,000. You can sock away $25,000+ after CVS matches if you wanted to. Which you should.

And yes, you can roll your 401k to a new company if you move.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I just get confused on the 19k part. If I do the math of 5% of my Annual income, I would have 5.5ktaken , company will match 5.5 k = 11k/ per year. So I could just have additional 8k taken out my salary making it 19k max combined?
Also, what’s the benefit of that? The fact it would lower the taxable income?

I appreciate your valuable inputs.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
 
pharmagirl1818 said:
Thank you. I just get confused on the 19k part. If I do the math of 5% of my Annual income, I would have 5.5ktaken , company will match 5.5 k = 11k/ per year. So I could just have additional 8k taken out my salary making it 19k max combined?
Also, what’s the benefit of that? The fact it would lower the taxable income?

I appreciate your valuable inputs.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
Click to expand...

You can contribute 19k per year regardless of the match. Whatever match the company gives you is extra. It's literally free money.

Yes it lowers your adjustable gross income so the amount of taxes you owe will be less. It is also pre-tax money that goes into 401k so the contributions and earnings are not taxed until you withdrawal after retirement when your tax bracket will likely be lower. There are other benefits to retirement accounts, for example if you're sued then those assets are protected.

The match is given per paycheck. To take full advantage of the match, you have to calculate what percentage of each paycheck will add up to 19k at the end of the year. If you reach 19k before the end of the year, then the match stops. So if your income is 110k, it would be about 17% contribution. However you may have to adjust the percentage throughout the year due to things like overtime or paid holidays that increase your income. I'm assuming you haven't started contribution 17% yet, so you may want to start higher like 19-20%.
 
Is everyone just choosing the vanguard Target Retirement fund?? Just trying to get opinions...
Thanks in advance!!
 
Litha said:
How do I change to a target date fund? I just logged into Vanguard today for the first time and having trouble finding things.
Click to expand...

You log in and go into the 401k account. Go to the bottom of the page and click the button with the two arrows going opposite directions ("manage my money"), then select "change investments".
 
meanrx said:
Is everyone just choosing the vanguard Target Retirement fund?? Just trying to get opinions...
Thanks in advance!!
Click to expand...

It's the easiest option. Cheap, effective, set it and forget it. Like I posted above, you can get into the weeds and put together a similar fund mixture manually for cheaper, but we are only talking 0.1% points of ER cheaper.
 
Last edited:
meanrx said:
Is everyone just choosing the vanguard Target Retirement fund?? Just trying to get opinions...
Thanks in advance!!
Click to expand...

Can't go wrong with that. You can always change it later if you want.
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
You can do $19,000 a year. Company MATCH maxes at 5%. Keep in mind no matter how much they match, you can put in $19,000. You can sock away $25,000+ after CVS matches if you wanted to. Which you should.

And yes, you can roll your 401k to a new company if you move.
Click to expand...

Hi thank you for your helpful advises, taking that I logged in to set up my contribution.

Under paycheck deduction,
There is
401k 5%
Roth
Annual incentive
Roth annual incentive


I have 5% for 401k, I’m guessing when my enrollment is confirmed this is the 5% income taken from paystub that CVS would match?

So if I put 10% for that I would still get 10% deducted pre tax that u were saying but company would match 5% of that and I can do that until I hit 19k?

Also, for the other stuff Roth annual incentive Roth annual should what did u do left it blank?
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
Don't forget to log in and set up your new Vanguard 401k account! I just logged into Vanguard and it looks like it's all available to view and play around with. You can't move money around yet, however. If you try, it will tell you that you can't yet. It automatically linked my 401k and Vanguard Roth IRA, which I thought was cool.
-----
INVESTMENT NOVICES: If you have no idea how to set up a portfolio and have no interest in learning, consider putting all of your money into the Retirement Target Date Fund (in Vanguard it just says Target Date 20XX.) It is a "set it and forget it" fund that will adjust your account mix over time automatically. It only costs 0.21% (which isn't that expensive) and will enable you to not have to learn anything about investing. New grads, if you max out your 401k starting in your mid-20s, put all of your money into this fund, by the time you are 60, you will be worth millions. Making a nice nest egg for yourself is literally that easy. Log in and do it. Trust Mikey here.
-----
For everyone else, it looks like we get the same selection of individual funds as before. For instance, the large cap growth is still that T Rowe Price/Columbus Circle/Melon fund from the old Future Fund. Which I think is weird. I don't get why they are moving to Vanguard, yet not letting us have access to whatever Vanguard fund we want to have access to. The only exception is that all of the aggressive/moderate/conservative funds have transferred to target date funds.
-----
Disclaimer: The Content in this post is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Nothing contained in this post or follow up posts constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, or endorsement.
All information in this thread is of a general nature and does not address the circumstances of any particular individual or entity. Nothing in this thread constitutes professional and/or financial advice, nor does any information in the thread constitute a comprehensive or complete statement of the matters discussed or the law relating thereto. You alone assume the sole responsibility of evaluating the merits and risks associated with the use of any information or other Content on the thread before making any decisions based on such information or other Content.
Click to expand...
Any suggestions on investing through HSA Account? Like vanguard (vigix)???
Thanks in advance
 
meanrx said:
Any suggestions on investing through HSA Account? Like vanguard (vigix)???
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

That's perfectly fine. It's a cheap growth fund. I just have it in the S&P 500 fund. The ER is only like 0.02% or something like that. They have some good, cheap options on our HSA.

I've really got to give it to CVS, they did a great job with our various employer-sponsored investment options.
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
That's perfectly fine. It's a cheap growth fund. I just have it in the S&P 500 fund. The ER is only like 0.02% or something like that. They have some good, cheap options on our HSA.

I've really got to give it to CVS, they did a great job with our various employer-sponsored investment options.
Click to expand...
Do you know if there is any additional annual fee for the HSA brokerage account besides ER fee?? Because I saw somewhere that’s they charge like $18 or $20 annually for the brokerage account.
Thanks
 
Contribute up to the match for 401k, max out Roth IRA, then either put more into 401k or do your own investing which gives you infinite number of options as opposed to the crap 401k funds most companies offer.
 
meanrx said:
Do you know if there is any additional annual fee for the HSA brokerage account besides ER fee?? Because I saw somewhere that’s they charge like $18 or $20 annually for the brokerage account.
Thanks
Click to expand...

Not as far as I know.

If you leave the company they will charge $4/mo maintenance fee. You can do a trustee to trustee transfer to Fidelity HSA, they don't charge any fees and you can invest in their funds for free.
 
Hey all thanks for this post! I just downloaded the Vanguard app and got it all set up. Been an Staff RPh for almost 5 months now. Hopefully it wasn't TOO much of a late start.
 
Cleaveland said:
Hey all thanks for this post! I just downloaded the Vanguard app and got it all set up. Been an Staff RPh for almost 5 months now. Hopefully it wasn't TOO much of a late start.
Click to expand...

The best time to start is now. 🙂
 
meanrx said:
Do you know if there is any additional annual fee for the HSA brokerage account besides ER fee?? Because I saw somewhere that’s they charge like $18 or $20 annually for the brokerage account.
Thanks
Click to expand...

Yeah, there are some fees, I got charged a fee when I started up the Schwab S&P 500 fund. But given that I already have low-5 figures in my HSA, that fee is insignificant in the long run.
 
hwks09 said:
Contribute up to the match for 401k, max out Roth IRA, then either put more into 401k or do your own investing which gives you infinite number of options as opposed to the crap 401k funds most companies offer.
Click to expand...

I'd max out 401k and Roth before any other investing. Not having to pay taxes on all that money is pretty sweet.
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
I'd max out 401k and Roth before any other investing. Not having to pay taxes on all that money is pretty sweet.
Click to expand...

I thought it was taxed just at a lower rate compared to when we get to use that money when we retire? Let me know!
 
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