Tracking down old retirement accounts help

[tacomike]

Hi all,

My wife and I are in our early 20's, and have recently both switched companies. She is a teacher and I am an account manager. My question here is with getting our 401k's rolled over into new accounts. We want to stay organized with our accounts and make sure they aren't getting eaten up by fees. She has $3,000 in her previous 401k, and I have $5,500 in my previous 401k. We have both opened 401k's at our new jobs, so the old money is just sitting in the previous accounts.

What do you all think is the best way to go about consolidating these accounts? What I have thought so far is to:

a: Roll the old 401k's into our respective new ones
b: Open a Roth IRA with Vanguard and roll the funds into that

If we went with option "b," I would like to hear about what funds you would choose as well. To give some insight on how far we are into the MMM Investment Order, we have maxed our HSA and now looking to potentially move into the IRA.

Thanks!

[jacoavluha]

Are funds in old accounts all pretax? Or Roth?

You can
Leave the accounts where they’re at. Good if the prior plans have excellent investment choices and low fees

Rollover into new job plans

Rollover to IRA (pretax or Roth depends on character of the money currently)

If prior funds are Roth then option 2 I don’t think is possible.

You could rollover pretax dollars to an IRA and convert to Roth also. This is a taxable conversion. Good to do if your current marginal tax rate is low.

We need more info to help more specifically