401K Rollover

[StashthatCash]

Hello,
I will be starting a new job and will be needing to rollover my 401K from my previous employer.  Who would you guys recommend; Vanguard, Betterment, or someone else? 
thank you in advance

[Dee18]

Consider whether you actually have to rollover that IRA.  I did so (on the advice of a representative of the company where the money was invested) and later realized I could have kept the money where it was and kept the lower fees that a large organization may have as compared to an individual investor.  Also, if you have any existing IRAs you are thinking of converting to Roth, you probably want to do that before rolling over this one.

[terran]

As Dee18 says, check on whether you can leave it where it is (usually the only reason you can't is if you don't have much in there) and what the fees are. Also see if you can roll in into your new employer's 401k and what the fees are there. If neither of those are good options I would roll it over to vanguard unless your new employer's 401k is with Fidelity since they're just about as good, so the convenience factor would win out. I would not use betterment since they have higher fees and their only real advantage is automatic tax loss harvesting (I would question the value of this service too) and you can't tax loss harvest in an IRA.

Keep in mind that a rollover IRA will cause you issues if you want to contribute to a backdoor roth, so if you think you have a chance of being over the income limits for direct roth contributions someday that would be another vote in favor of keeping your 401k with your old employer or rolling it over to your new employer unless both of those have only poor/high fee investment options.

[Polish_Hammer]

While you can leave your money in the old employers 401K I would roll it into vanguard or fidelity IRA.  I personally feel much better when I am in control of my money not an ex-employer.  My first "real" job after college some 25+ years ago was with a small company and I left the money in their 401k plan when I left.  Five years later the company had gone out of business and the two company owners (only one of which was an American citizen) could not be found to sign-off on the rollover when I finally decided to move my money.  It stayed in limbo for another five years until the owner got around to closing out the company plan.  Not likely with a bigger company but......

[Cleared as filed]

Also, if you are a former federal government employee (or military), and you have a Thrift Savings Plan account, you might look into rolling your 401(k) into the TSP. You're allowed to do those sorts of transfers into the TSP even if you're separated from federal service, and the TSP has expense ratios that are practically unbeatable.

https://www.tsp.gov/PlanParticipation/EligibilityAndContributions/RolloversTransfers/index.html

[MoustacheDArgent]

You can also set up a solo 401k and roll it into that and invest in real estate instead of mutual funds