Moving Investments

[tophdna]

I will be changing government jobs and states in the next few months and currently have a retirement plan and a 457(B) that I regularly put into. When at the new government job in the new state, should I transfer those accounts to their retirement account they set up for me? Or should I just transfer them to my account at vanguard (which currently has just a Roth IRA)? I understand the accounts would need to be placed in traditional buckets to avoid tax issues.

Simply put, do I transfer my old jobs stuff to the new job or should I transfer them to my personal vanguard and let them sit there until retirement?

[Maenad]

I've made this decision based on investment options (do they have index funds?) and expense ratios. A couple of the companies I've worked for have had big enough accounts that they've merited Vanguard's Institutional shares, which have a lower e.r. than I could get with my rollover IRA.

Interestingly, moving money back from a rollover IRA into a 401k involved some extra paperwork that the initial 401k->IRA did not.

[terran]

If the new employer plan has decent investment options I would roll your plans over there. If not I would either leave them where they are if those investment options are good or roll them over to the appropriate type of IRA. I would be inclined to be somewhat less picky about investment options in order to keep money in a governmental 457(b) since they have the nice feature of allowing penalty free withdrawals before you're 59.5 years old, unlike other retirement plans and you lose that feature if you roll them over to an IRA or other retirement plan.

[hadabeardonce]

If the new employer plan has decent investment options I would roll your plans over there. If not I would either leave them where they are if those investment options are good or roll them over to the appropriate type of IRA. I would be inclined to be somewhat less picky about investment options in order to keep money in a governmental 457(b) since they have the nice feature of allowing penalty free withdrawals before you're 59.5 years old, unlike other retirement plans and you lose that feature if you roll them over to an IRA or other retirement plan.

100% what's bold above.

If you're planning early retirement, the 457 is a dream come true. Once you move those assets into another account, you're forced to play by that account's rules, which are most likely much less dreamy.

[Car Jack]

Opening a traditional IRA makes back door roth options go away.  If your current options are very high ER, then it might make sense.  If the ERs are reasonable, why move?