My husband has a 403(b) plan with $62k through Transamerica administered by his old employer. On top of that he has a separate set of investments in an Employer Contribution Account (not sure why this is separate) with $23k. He hasn't worked there in a few years and we do not make any contributions to this account. I am very much a newbie at looking into these investments so would really, really appreciate some handholding as I would like to consolidate to 1-2 Vanguard funds.
This is only about 10% of our retirement accounts so for simplicity's sake, I am thinking of just putting everything into VTSAX or a combo of 80% VTSAX and 20% VBTLX (all these acronyms make me feel smart!). We are looking at FIRE in 1-4 years although it's probable we won't need to touch this money for 5 years, probably more.
Anyway, I finally called and spoke to the advisor. He said we can basically only choose to reallocate the money between the 15 or so funds they offer (currently, the investments are spread out between all 15 accounts with MERs mostly around 0.5% to 0.6%). The only low MERs they offer are:
Vanguard Federal Money Market Inv (0.11%)
Vanguard Institutional Index Instl Pl (0.02%)
Vanguard Small Cap Index InstlPlus (0.04%)
We suffer from a bit of inertia so I would prefer to leave the money here with Transamerica. BUT they don't offer the funds everyone keeps talking about and doesn't look like there is anything comparable.
Anyway, my "dumb" questions are:
- how do we move this money? Do I just set up an account somewhere and then put in a request for an in-kind transfer and then sell off everything and buy what I want? We already have an account with TD Ameritrade so lazy me would just like to stick with that (They offer VTI which I *think* is essentially the same as VTSAX and BND which I think is like VBTLX)
- what do I need to know about moving a 403(b)? I pretty much understand nothing about what 403(b)s are even! I think they are similar to 401ks. We pretty much let his employer do whatever and only look at this account to get the balances.
- anything else I should consider from a tax perspective?
Full disclosure: We live in Canada. My husband does file US taxes every year but because he makes under the cutoff, we don't pay any US taxes at this point. Other than this and one more old employer retirement account (which offers a defined benefit pension so we are not planning to touch it until he hits normal retirement age) we have no US investments and for simplicity's sake, I prefer to keep it this way. I don't mind leaving these investments in the US as we spend $6-10k in the US annually and it will be nice in the future not to have to change money. The rest of our savings are in Canada as I am much more familiar with Canadian investing (although I don't know a whole lot there either). My main goal is simplification and getting better returns. I also want a "set it and forget it" method. If it matters, my husband is 47.
These all feel like dumb questions, but I really don't know where to start. Help!