My wife works for a research lab that is run by the University of California but partially funded by the fed gov't. So she can invest in a 403 b (non profit / edu) and 457 b (gov't). Until recently (ie prior to finding MMM), we had been putting money equally into the accounts. Knowing that the 457 does not have an early withdrawal penalty, I think we will change our deductions to make sure we fill up the 457 first and then the 403. Both funds are managed by Fidelity and offer the same investment options.
As commentators have said above, each plan is slightly different so read the fine print.
My wife has a 401k at Intel, leftover from a previous employer. We asked Fidelity about rolling that over to the 403 or 457 plan. They recommended the 403 because it has less restrictions. At the time, we didn't know to ask more. Now I will make sure we ask what they mean by that, because the 457 seems more appealing to us.
Note, that if you too are thinking of consolidating accounts like we are, the money that comes from your 401k will still be subject to the same stipulations as the 401k, even if it is now sitting in a 457. For example, say you have $20k in your 401k that you roll into your 457, which already had $30k in it. If you want to take money out at age 50 for an early retirement or a year of traveling, you can withdraw the $30k without any penalty, but the $20k will have the standard early withdrawal penalty, even though it's technically in a 457 account.
So, for our case, it might make the most sense to rollover the old 401k into my 401k, so that in the future we don't have to wonder which funds from which accounts applies to which rules.
Your thoughts? Am I missing something?
Oh, and yes it is awesome that my wife can fill up a 403 and 457 and I can fill up my 401k - that's $52,500 we can put away pre-tax. This is the first year we've been able to take advantage of three pre-tax plans and it could really ratchet up the retirement savings (assuming we can put a full $52,500 away every year).