My most valuable lesson to pass on is this…
Do not trust your account holders to track your holdings accurately.
Do not trust them to maintain historical records.
Twice, in my 30+ years of investing, I have had to demand corrections to my 401k account from a former job.
Both had to do with the vested % of employer contributions somehow being set back to zero (from 60%).
The first time, since it was the old days, I had the paper docs in a file. They agreed quickly on the error and fixed it.
The second time, five years ago, I relied on the electronic records through the the T. Rowe Price site, and found them to be inadequate. It was eventually fixed, but that was a lot of frustration.
Now that I think about it, my record keeping of marital accounts which were not in my name would have come in handy in my divorce. That cost me some $.
It comes down to this. You need to be able to legally prove what assets you own, and you shouldn’t rely on any record keeping system you don’t control.
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