Author Topic: My company's 401K stinks .. what are my options?  (Read 1372 times)

LiseE

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My company's 401K stinks .. what are my options?
« on: January 04, 2017, 08:47:57 AM »
My company's 401k returns are awful.  My husbands (from his last job) are with Vanguard and the SPIndex fund has earned double digits over the past two months whereas my TRowe Price SPIndex has earned 4 or 5 percent.  I also have only Targeted date funds or SP Index to chose from .. like 5 choices in total.

Company match is not great either .. 50% match on 3% of salary. 

My hubby has just started a new consulting position so no 401K available for him there yet.  I needed to lower my contribution while he wasn't working but am now looking at bumping it back up again. 

Do I up it to the 20% max or do I have any other options?

StarBright

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Re: My company's 401K stinks .. what are my options?
« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2017, 09:34:12 AM »
I'm pretty sure the S&P was up about 3.3% in the 4th quarter so your return looks fine.

Vanguard vfinx was at 3.8% for the 4th quarter of 2016. I'd double check your husband's numbers again.

I have Trowe 401k through my job and I've been pleased with the Index Options - they aren't perfect, but they are low fee and seem to be tracking the market correctly. I also have had a bit in a TR target date fund (2045) because it was my only option when I first signed up for the 401k - the allocations there also seem solid (80% US stock, 10% international stock and 10% between bonds/cash etc)  and while the fees are higher than an index fund, they are still well under 1%. Though I've since moved my contributions into the index fund, I did keep the past amounts in the target fund.

 

NoStacheOhio

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Re: My company's 401K stinks .. what are my options?
« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2017, 11:41:30 AM »
Returns don't matter in the context of whether or not a 401k plan is good. You want your returns to track the market. If it's a down year, then your returns are going to look bad. Ignore it.

Fees matter. If they only have funds with loads, or they're charging you for simply having the account, that's where it starts to suck.