Your HR should be able to point you in the right direction. Especially if it's a large company they should know how to answer this quickly.

This is a large company and it sounds like the person Fidelity is reaching out to is some sort of middleman. I asked if it would be beneficial to contact someone in my HR department and Fidelity didn’t seem to think so, but I’ll attempt that route.

You're barking up the wrong tree. Fidelity is the plan custodian/administrator, they do what your employer tells them. If you don't know who to contact at your employer, start with HR.

How do you not know who to contact at your company? Is there not an HR department?

> PRN

You'll need to confirm how that impacts the vesting

I’m still employed, but went from full-time to PRN

It sounds like you're still employed with the employer offering the 401k plan. That means you should have access to payroll and HR employees that you can contact to talk to about verifying your employment with Fidelity. Start calling or emailing until you get someone who can answer your questions.

Are you still employed there? If so, don't worry about it

You may find these links helpful:

• 401(k) Fund Selection Guide
• 401(k) FAQs
• "How to handle $"

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Thank you both for your inputs, its helping me put things into perspective

I didn't quote you, those are my words.

> A credit score in the low 500s definitely needs to be addressed. It's not going to fix itself overnight

Where did I say it would fix itself over night?

Don’t put words in my mouth that I didn’t say.

A credit score in the low 500s definitely needs to be addressed. It's not going to fix itself overnight and it's not worth obsessing over in the short term for that reason but it's a real problem with consequences that OP is justified in being worried about.

Why do you care about a higher credit score? I’ve had an 850 score. The promised dancers, marching band, ponies, and magicians didn’t show up. And I waited all day.

You should be less concerned about your credit score and more concerned about preventing a reoccurrence of problems that resulted from going into debt when you lost your job. You didn’t have a sufficient emergency fund. It took you 6 months to replace your income in an economy with low unemployment rates.

After you pay off your debts, you should focus on a 12 month emergency fund.

Pay all your credit card balances in full and your score will recover over time.

I’d worry about rebuilding your emergency fund after getting current so you wouldn’t be put in such a predicament should anything like this happens again.

You rebuild credit by paying your debts on time. That’s the biggest part, and it makes sense because the score is about how safe you are to lend to. Lenders want to get paid back.

Paying off your credit cards frees you from crippling interest on debt. That doesn’t help your credit directly, but it’s important to do. But also speak to your loan lenders and make sure to do what you can to get back into their good graces. Being behind and then catching up with a payment plan is better than debt sent to collections.

Credit score is also a weird fixation. Unless you plan to buy a house or a car or need a new home lease and have an obnoxious landlord, it really has no effect on your life. If you have a newish cad, a solid place to live, and no plans for the next seven years, your credit score basically doesn’t matter and will fix itself with time and reasonably good financial behavior.

You may find these links helpful:

• Leaving a Job (resigning, quitting, fired, laid off, etc.)
• Job Loss Megathread: unemployment resources, state-specific information, and help

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Have you not looked around this subreddit much? Half of the posts over the past half-year are some variant of "which high interest rate savings option is better"

It's probably worth following up with the university, but I would assume it's just a scam. If they call you again tell them they should make all communications by mail and then see what happens

Agreed. This is very industry dependent.

Put it into a target retirement date fund that closest matches you turning 59 1/2 years old or later. Keep contributing. Never change it. Never sell it. Retire.

Absolutely do not follow the other advice to pay his portion. Go to the landlord and explain.

This month you're covering for him and hoping he pays back later. Next month what if the same situation happens?

If he can't afford to pay this month, how will he afford rent next month + paying you back?

Once he realizes you'll have to cover him, it will not stop.

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The advice generally would be to not invest in individual stocks and put your money into low cost index funds.