<prompt> Human: My mom 47F has been working with this company for almost 20 years now and she has a 401k through them. Every time she goes to check her account, the amount of money is almost always decreasing despite her making contributions to it idk the exact shes contributing, if she gets employer match, or how old the account is, but her annual gross income is 72k.What are we doing wrong? I want to help her turn this around because at this rate, theres no way at all that shell be able to retire she only has around 2k in the account. Ive read through the 401k guides here but Im still at a lost about how to start tackling this problem.How do you find out what funds are available to the plan? How do you go about picking these funds once youve identified the best ones? Do you need to talk with an advisor to make these changes or can you do that on your own?If theres additional info that you guys need to know in order to figure out whats going on, please let me know and I will get it for you.EDIT: Embarrassingly enough, my mom was checking the wrong account. She has more than 2k saved up. I want to thank everyone whod commented and gave feedback; learned a lot just from that alone.Assistant: Does she have online account access like most people? If so, login with her and take a look at which funds she has and how much she is contributing. If she doesnt have online access, she will need to go through HR and figure out how to set it up or at least they will have her contribution options. You can change everything through HR or online. With only 2k, it sounds like she is not contributing or taking out a bunch of loans. Something strange is going on. Human: She does have an online account so I will take a look at it after work today.I was completely shocked to hear that she only had 2k given that a portion of her paychecks goes towards it all the time.She stays on top of paying bills and debt, and the only loan that shes taken out was for the house but that was 10 years ago. Then again, I dont know the whole story since she believes that parents should never talk about money and finance with their kids. The only person that I know would take out loans would be my dad but he shouldnt have access to her 401k, right? At least, not directly...  <response>: I mean there are some highly pertinent questions to answer here before really knowing how to proceed.1. How long has she been contributing to the 401k?2. What rate has she been contributing at?3. Has there been employer match and if so, at what rate?4. Do you have access to statements showing activity on the account for at least the last few years, up to the point at which contributions started? These should be provided by the investment manager handling the funds, automatically and upon request.5. What do her W-2s for the last few years show for deferral contributions? box 12For reference, I make less than she does and have contributed to my account for 2 years at 8-10 and I have significantly more than 2,000 in it at present. There is simply no way that that account balance represents the totality of a person making 70 grand and contributing at a reasonable rate for even just a couple years without some other form of explanation such as a withdrawal or deposit errors.So possibilities include:- She has not been contributing very long or at anything beyond a very low rate for some time, in which case she really just needs more time higher contribution. At 70k salary if she was only doing 1 for 2 years then yea, that wouldnt be much at all.- This is some form of inactive account, and her money is actually being contributed to an account under a different login or some such- She stopped contributions some time ago and didnt realize it seems unlikely if her payroll stubs are showing withholdings for the retirement plan- Her employer is withholding contributions and not making the deposits a very serious problem if it has been for significant amounts, but not too uncommon for it to happen occasionally, in which case she gets some addtl contribution for lost earnings- She updated her contribution rate but the employer hasnt been withholding at this rate less serious and could result in corrective deposits for a portion of the missed withholdings - this actually happened to me- The money is being withheld but has been getting deposited to the wrong employee can be corrected by a transfer between accounts- She took the money out- ??Its hard to say without knowing the activity on the account and further details. 