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Mrs. Micah is having a single step personal finance challenge.  Essentially, she is asking all her readers to reflect and come up with one baby step to getting close to your financial goals.  For me, it’s that I got everything straightened out this week with my IRAs and got my paperwork medallion guaranteed (after a 3 hour ordeal of everyone refusing because I wasn’t a member of any financial institution in my area!).  I was able to send the paperwork to Vanguard Monday afternoon and will hopefully have all my money from Merrill Lynch trasnferred over in the next 4-6 weeks.

I had to open a new account with a local bank in order to have my signature guaranteed, but at least now I have something close to home that can do things like that for me.  Our credit union is three hours north, in our home town, and we’ve never really had the need to change.  We’re still keeping it, actually.  I’m keeping the minimum $5 in my new savings account and that gives me access to services that I may need in the future.  I feel like I’m using them, but I needed to do what was best for us at the time.  And driving three hours north to have someone watch me sign a piece of paper was out of the question, sorry.  The only other time I’ve ever had to appear in person at our CU was when I changed my last name and added Dave to the account as a joint owner when we got married.  And we went home to visit family about a month after getting married, and just did it then.  No biggie.  But this medallion guarantee thing…gosh what a headache.  I was almost to the point of tears with frustration because I really didn’t want to have to open a new account just to have someone authenticate my signature.  It was kind of a hassle, but it needed to be done to get my IRA situation squared away.

So.  That was my baby step for now.  Clearing up a huge IRA mess and getting everything in order so that I can clearly see what’s in store for retirement!

What about you?