Author Topic: Advise on moving 401K  (Read 1585 times)

calman

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Advise on moving 401K
« on: November 21, 2018, 10:28:15 AM »
Hi to all.  I am 58 and my wife is 57.  FIRE'd for 2+ years and loving every minute. 
Great site.  Trying to learn as much as possible.
At Schwab we have a brokerage account and we each have a ROTH.  I also have a rollover there as well.
She retired from the FRB and still has her 401K there.  They have good investment options but not as many as Schwab or Vanguard.
We are wondering if we should:
Leave it there.
Roll it over to Schwab in a new account.  (She wonders about having everything at the same place).
Open an account at Vanguard and roll it there.  If we do that should we put the Schwab money there as well.
Is there a preference between Schwab and Vanguard for our situation?
Thanks for any help.

Fiery Eclipse

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Re: Advise on moving 401K
« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2018, 11:27:49 AM »
I prefer the advice of https://jlcollinsnh.com/.  He advocates simplicity.

So in your case, unless the fees are very low with your old 401k and you have access to similar funds, he would recommend consolidating to keep things simple.

In short, move everything to Vanguard, and split your portfolio up between mostly (60-100%) total market funds (VTI, VTSAX) and put the rest into Bonds (BND, VBMFX).

But I'm no where near retirement and don't know how'd I feel in your situation, so I think it's really up to you.


Mustache ride

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Re: Advise on moving 401K
« Reply #2 on: November 21, 2018, 12:28:20 PM »
Most people here have a preference towards Vanguard, but Schwab and Fidelity have both dropped their ER's on basic index funds to stay competitive. Vanguard's site is a bit basic, and I hear their customer service is lacking. I don't know anything about Schwab though to compare it. Either way, I don't think there is a wrong answer here.

TomTX

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Re: Advise on moving 401K
« Reply #3 on: November 22, 2018, 06:19:57 AM »
Merrill Edge has had great customer service for me, and you can get paid up to $600 to transfer accounts there ($900 if you are already Preferred Rewards) - getting higher tier Preferred Rewards gets you higher cash back on BoA credit cards as well.

Since I have everything in ETFs and don't trade much - I don't pay any fees or have any trading costs, just the underlying ETF expenses. For example VTI has the same expense as VTSAX.