26 KIPLINGER’S PERSONAL FINANCE^ 05/2017MONEY
ISTOCKPHOTO.COM (2)Pick a single rewards card with a generous pay-
back on everything you buy and you’ll have just
one credit card bill to pay each month, a single
statement to monitor for errors and fraud, andUSE ONE CREDIT CARD
PUT ALL YOUR INVESTMENTS
IN ONE BASKET
Consolidating your assets
can make your investments
easier to track (no more
multiple statements) and
reduce the paper trail at tax
time. But do it carefully. If
you transfer assets out of a
taxable account, for exam-
ple, watch out for tax conse-
quences, transaction fees or
transfer charges. You can
avoid most charges by
transferring assets “in kind”
to the new account, but if
you have to sell shares in a
mutual fund your new firm
doesn’t offer, you could trig-
ger a commission or re-
demption fee—and a tax bill.
If you roll 401(k) funds into
an IRA, your company may
send you a check payable
to the new firm. If you fail
to deposit it within 60 days,
you’ll owe income tax on
the money plus a 10% pen-
alty if you’re younger than
age 55. (For more advice
on IRA rollovers, see “Roll
Your Money Into an IRA?”
on page 38.)
If consolidating makes
sense, choose a firm that
charges low fees and has
services you’ll use. FIDELITY,
for instance, offers more
than 3,700 mutual funds
without a load or transac-
tion fee, and it sports a wide
range of advisory and re-tirement-planning services
(see “Best of the Online Bro-
kers,” Aug. 2016). If your
assets are difficult to move,
consider aggregating them
virtually, with an onlineinvestment-management
tool such as PERSONAL CAPITAL.
The site lets you link your
investing accounts and ana-
lyze your whole portfolio
on a single dashboard. R.E.one rewards program to track. Plus, you won’t
have to think about which card to pull out at
the register. With the CITI DOUBLE CASH card
(annual percentage rate: 13.49% to 23.49%),
for example, you’ll earn 1% when you make a
purchase and an additional 1% when you pay
the bill, for a total of 2% back on everythingyou buy. Investors may prefer the FIDELITY
REWARDS VISA (14.49%), which earns 2%
cash back on purchases when you deposit the
rewards into a Fidelity brokerage, retirement,
checking or 529 college-savings account.
If you like playing the rewards card game—
juggling multiple cards for maximum earnings in
different categories—you can simplify by using
credit cards from a single issuer. If you stick
with cards in the Chase Ultimate Rewards pro-
gram, for example, you can pool the points you
earn and exchange them for travel bookings,
cash back, Amazon.com purchases and other
rewards. The CHASE FREEDOM UNLIMITED card
(0% for 15 months, then 15.49% to 24.24%)
rebates a flat 1.5% on all purchases. CHASE
FREEDOM (0% for 15 months, then 15.49% to
24.24%) offers 5% back on up to $1,500 spent
each quarter in rotating categories and 1% on
everything else you buy (so far in 2017, cate-
gories that earned 5% included gas stations
and grocery stores). And CHASE SAPPHIRE PRE-
FERRED (16.49% to 23.49%; $95 annual fee,
waived the first year) offers two points per
dollar on travel and dining and one point on
all other purchases. LISA GERSTNER