<p>All of the talk about retirement accounts has reminded me that H has several 401(k) accounts from previous employers, and because we have never figured out what we ought to do with them, we have just left them with the previous employers (one is managed by Fidelity and one is a state government account).</p>
<p>I know (or at least I am pretty sure) we have the option of combining these accounts with H’s 401(k) through his present employer. Anything else we should consider? (Fees and performance seem pretty much the same among the accounts.)</p>
<p>Combining them is good so you can keep track of them and allocate your total assets according to your plans. It’s harder to do when you have smaller pieces all over the place.</p>
<p>If that doesn’t work for you, just send the funds to me. ;)</p>
<p>ETA: I found when I combined all of my and DH’s accounts from all over the universe, we were able to be provided with additional services since our assets had reached some threshold.</p>
<p>I moved my account from a former employer into a traditional IRA, and in later years converted it to a Roth IRA. (It was fairly large and I did this when I was given the option to split the tax owed over 2 years.) I feel better not having it in the former employer’s plan, and completely under my control in an IRA. I did not have a current employer to move it to, but I feel like I have a bit more freedom this way to invest where I want to.</p>
<p>Every time I left an employer (I guess it happened 3 times in my career) I rolled my 401k into a traditional IRA. When I left my last job I also rolled my 401k into the same IRA, so most of my retirement funds are now in one IRA. I like having a self directed IRA so I can make the investment decisions myself and have a wide variety of choices.</p>
<p>I’ve taken all my distributions and rolled them into my own IRA. I use Vanguard funds. I have a modest amount in my 401(k) – I’m not there now but am considering going back.</p>
<p>I rolled my previous employer’s 401K into a Fidelity account, where I had a couple of other accounts. I have been pleased with having everything in one place and the process is pretty simple. Since you too have an account at Fidelity you can certainly contact them for help with the rollover process, either at a Fidelity store front or online.</p>
<p>I think it is typically best to roll over these accounts to a self-directed IRA. Typically that gives you more investment choices. I have not seen a lot of reason to consolidate. At one time I had 4 different plans with different investment houses. When I approached retirement, I consolidated with two investment houses (TIAA-CREF and Fidelity). I am pretty happy with Fidelity but if you have TIAA-CREF there are some nice advantages. In my working life, I only had one year where I qualified with TIAA-CREF, but I was still able to roll over other accounts and other non-retirement investments.</p>
<p>I have rolled all my prior employer 401ks into one at fidelity. My last employer managed their through fidelity, so it was an easy roll up. You shouldn’t be paying any fees on a401k rollover. Look at low cost fund manager such as fidelity or vanguard. also, never pay an upfront fee or load on a mutual fund.</p>
<p>^^Agree. I have all my retirement $$ in mutual funds. I sleep well at night. I don’t pretend to have the ability to pick individual stocks (and I’ve been a 401(k) administrator for 20 years). </p>
<p>Full disclosure: I worked at Vanguard right out of college back in the mid-80s. Was there when they celebrated getting to $10B in assets!</p>
<p>Like VeryHappy said, with many funds you get better services and slightly better returns with larger balances in one fund family.
You probably don’t have to roll them together, just move them to the same fund group.</p>
<p>This is timely. My former employer called me yesterday to tell me I have to roll over or cash out my retirement account by the end of the year - otherwise, they can roll it over into an IRA for me (it is less than $5000). I want to put it in an IRA instead of my 403B. H has a 401K with Fidelity, and I have my 403B with TIAA-CREF. I guess I should look at one of the two companies so I can keep everything more or less together.</p>
<p>The one thing to be careful about is if the ex-employer’s admin sends you a check, sometimes even without you asking for it because the amount is less than some threshold - make sure you put it into a retirement account such as a personal non-Roth IRA without delay. You also need to keep track of your total basis in case your IRA had taxed contributions.</p>
<p>One other thing to keep in mind is if you aren’t allowed to make Roth IRA contributions due to your income, and are interested in the back door method, think about it before you roll a retirement account into an IRA. If you have no Traditional IRAs and you can use the back door method to contribute and then convert without paying any tax. But if you have a traditional IRA you have to pay tax on a portion of your conversion for the year. Or you could convert the entire amount and pay tax on all of it.</p>
<p>And continuing on to what Dad of 3 said…if your employer sent you a check and has withheld taxes on it, in order to not have it be taxed, you must contribute the pretax amount to an IRA or pay some tax.</p>
<p>I was able to roll my IRA into my former employer’s 403 plan before I contributed to my new non-deductible traditional IRA, which I will convert into a ROTH IRA. If you possess any traditional IRAs, the amount you convert into a ROTH IRA will be prorated against all your traditional IRA assets.</p>
<p>There is a lot to think about with retirement funds. If you have the ability to have different accounts that you can keep track of, that can be useful too. If you may not need the funds in the near future, it is nice allowing it to grow tax-free in a ROTH IRA and perhaps be able to leave some of it to loved ones or spend when YOU decide you want to, without mandatory required minimum distributions upon age 70.</p>
<p>I am so clueless about all of this. H and I will be seeing a planner after the first of the year, but that is too late for the rollover I need to do before the 31st. I have a 401K and a 403B and H has a 401K. The rollover will be from my 401K, leaving me with just my TIAA-CREF 403B accounts (3 schools’ plans). We do not have any traditional IRAs. If I were to rollover into a Roth, is there a way to avoid the taxes?</p>
<p>I also have a state retirement plan account that I can rollover, too … I can put that in the same account as the 401K rollover. The total of the two accounts is probably only about $6-7000.</p>