As I mentioned a few days ago I am currently in the process of rolling my 401(k) into an IRA. My employer instituted a Roth 401(k) a few years ago, so some money will roll into a Roth IRA and the rest will roll into a traditional IRA. To be more precise roughly $100,000 will move into the Roth and $175,000 will move into the traditional account.
I planned to move the money to Charles Schwab, because that’s where my husband and I keep all of our accounts. In fact, we gave me up traditional banking years ago and haven’t looked back once since.
Well it just so happens that Schwab is offering a bonus to anyone who rolls a 401(k) into a new or existing IRA from now until April 17th. The bonus amount paid is tied to the amount of money you plan to roll over.
In my case since both accounts will be over $100,000 Schwab will deposit an additional $300 into each account. Given the amount of money I’m rolling over it’s certainly not much, but since I’m moving the money anyway it certainly doesn’t hurt.
If you have no earned income for 2012, I'm pretty sure you cannot add new money to your IRA accounts. Better check with the Schwab folks on that.
I recommend you read the book called The Lazy Person's Guide to Investing. I'm not saying that you are Lazy, but we are and this book has helped a lot!