Curious to learn with which companies people have IRAs and what they like/dislike about those companies.
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Vanguard…this is where I roll over my 401ks when quit a job.
I pretty much only put new money into the 401k.
I go with vanguard because of the index funds & their low fees.
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I don’t save for retirement. I don’t plan on retiring. I know I’ll be dead within 6 months from OD if I ever retire.
Stocks and crypto all the way. And live in the NOW.
Schwab IRA
They let you do anything, even options (no crypto though, yet)
Do you really not put anything into a 401k/IRA?
If so clearly imposter actuary
Similar to 1695814. Fidelity and (mostly) Vanguard. One Roth, one trad. Both have been fine. And, yeah, low cost index.
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I do the minimum company match amount and that’s it
The bulk of my non-inherited retirement savings is in a 401(k) at Vanguard.
I have three IRAs: a small one at my primary bank (Citi), the history of which is beyond the scope of this thread, but which I maintain there as part of meeting minimum balances for relationship perks; and two inherited IRAs at Morgan Stanley which are so-located because the brokerage my grandfather started doing business with many years ago was acquired by MS, the principal of that particular office was close friends with my late mother, etc.
I’m annoyed with the Citi IRA, due to the limited selection of mutual funds and frustration as a do-it-yourself investor in figuring out which funds are actually available. If/when I ever get around to changing primary banks (something I keep saying I will do, but never get around to actually doing because of the hassle involved), I’ll move the IRA. Until then, it’ll be growing with the proceeds of a stretch annuity I inherited with my father’s passing.
I like the folks I’ve dealt with at Morgan Stanley, although now that I’ve inherited the family portfolio, I’m taking a “wait-and-see” approach on whether I like them enough to justify their fees. I’d probably be better with a more self-serve option (in which case I’d probably go with someone other than Vanguard for risk-diversification reasons), but I’m supposed to be minimizing stress. I’ll probably just let them skim off the top, and accept the cost as the price of not having to mess with it.
(This reminds me – does anyone have a pointer to calculating the minimum required distribution of a stretch annuity? In juggling my father’s estate, I never did find that out. I’ll find out soon enough, but…)
If memory servs you calculate the factor once for the divisor the first year and reduce that number by 1 each year. The IRS put out new table with longer life expectancy this year so if you’ve been taking them for a while you go back and figure out what the factor would have been in the 1st year and reduce that by the number of years. I don’t believe stretch IRAs allowed you to recalculate each year but if I’m wrong that would make the RMDs a bit smaller each year.
As for where my IRA is - TD Ameritrade.
Not really sure why I chose that other than Schwab started charging a small fee for small accounts when we were still reasonably poor so we switched our brokerage and IRA at the same time. Now Schwab has bought TD Ameritrade we have way more than the minimum to avoid fees but for now it’s still technically a separate company so that’s where we are at.
Stock and ETF trading is easy, they have access to a pretty wide range of low cost mutual funds, I guess we’re happy.
Investments in Depfa of course, but Ulster Bank, no way.
Vanguard. They’ve been fine, but I haven’t really done anything too complicated. I did a recharacterization once, a couple rollovers in, one rollover out, and some backdoor Roths. All fine. I’m going to attempt to transfer our taxable account into a revocable living trust soon, so we’ll see how that goes.
I have a 401k with Fidelity and would consider them too if I was opening a new IRA today, but they weren’t my 401k provider back when I was opening an IRA.
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Vanguard
Sounds like they couldn’t stand to see you go
I’ve known some actuaries in their 40s still paying student loans and minimums on credit card debt, quoth one, “I should start putting money into my 401k someday.”
One was planning to spend his retirement by opening a bunch of credit cards, taking out a big HELOC against his house, running up credit card debt, and dying childless and in massive debt.
To answer OP: Vanguard. A bit confusing if setting it up for your first time, but not bad. Mindless following that, drop in your money and done.
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RICH
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I was somewhat in that boat.
I only got aggressive (max 401(k), max HSA) probably four/five years ago.
I think I always did the min for match, but I may have missed 6 to 12 months once when switching jobs and money was tight.
Don’t have an IRA
Do have a couple useless cash balance plans(~25k) earning 5% in the background somewhere.
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Same.
I will say that I don’t have kids and probably never will, so I’m all about me.
No kids either, but I do have my spouse I need to plan for.
She will likely live longer than me.
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Everything is with Fidelity. Former employer had 401k and pension through them, current employer switched to Fidelity for their 401k, and then I opened a Roth IRA and brokerage account with them last year. It’s nice to have everything in one spot 
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