Oscar Wins Bring Leverage To New Jobs

The big news from last night was ostensibly that "No Country for Old Men" took top film honors and four Europeans grabbed Oscars in the major acting categories at the 80th Academy Awards ceremony in the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles. But for those winners, as well as everyone else leaving that night with a gold statuette, the best (financial) news is still to come. 

“Everyone who wins an Oscar,  if they were a $1 million actor its quite feasible, they are now $5 million actors. If they are in a movie that makes money like “Juno” they will make money on their next project. Ellen Page at the very most made $250,000 for “Juno.” At the very least in her next film she can make $2 million,” says Clifford Streit, a producer for “American Psycho” and the author of  the upcoming “Sex, Shoes and Stanford Blatch.”

If you—like the Oscar winners, but, likely, on a much smaller scale—have just leveraged your hard work into a great new gig, make sure you do not cost yourself money by ignoring your retirement savings options. Experts say letting your old retirement accounts languish is the first big mistake job upgrading employees make. (Editor’s Note: Yes, Oscar winners aren’t the first to be sweating what’s in their 401(k) but go with us.)

Before you roll any retirement account over, make sure the amount is addressed to the correct party, to avoid any transfer fees. “You want to make sure it goes from trustee to trustee so there isn’t that 20% tax penalty to the IRS that you will have to arm wrestle to get back," says John Scott, and independent 40l (k) consultant with the40lkadvisor.com in Scottsdale, Arizona.