Agreed, I am currently in the process of consolidating all my old 401Ks/HSAs/ESPPs from various previous employers
My situation. Without a tragic happening Iām dying well before my partner, so making sure they and any children are well-cared for.
My current employer uses Schwab for the 401k andā¦ well it was United for our HSA until today. But I keep what I can with Fidelity. Makes it easy and so far Iāve had no issues with them.
Sorry, I donāt understand how you could succumb to Occupational Disease if you are unemployed?
Sorry for the tangentā¦
But I have a crapload of accounts. Is this normal? They are spread out across Schwab, Fidelity, and Vanguard.
I have worked for 4 employers in my career.
From employer 1 I rolled my 401k into Schwab, but broke it into 2 accounts because I wanted to keep (not sell off) Employer 1 stock (Employer 1ās matching program was all in their own stock) but the rest of the money is in a balanced multi-mutual-fund-account that is managed by Schwab. Also at Schwab is a small Roth IRA I started a long time ago when I was eligible to contribute to a Roth.
From Employer 2 I have my 401k rolled into an IRA at Fidelity.
From Employer 3 I have my 401k rolled into an IRA at Vanguard.
From Employer 4 I have a 401k at Vanguard.
Is there a particular reason you keep all the rollovers separate? All the rollovers Iāve done in the past have been relatively small, so I havenāt given much thought to anything other than convenience. I guess you have more flexibility for 72t distributions, but I donāt plan to do those.
Which company do you like the best?
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Yes.
Is it optimal? Probably not, but you seem to have some pretty good reasons for some of them. Iām not here to tell you that youāre doing it wrong. Youāre just doing it differently that I am. I like to put all of my eggs in the same basket so that I donāt have to remember where all of my baskets of eggs are.
Personally, Iād probably get rid of Fidelity & roll it into Vanguardā¦but thatās just because of my biases for Vanguard that Iāve mentioned earlier in this thread. JMO.
I guess that I have never been pushed for any reason to consolidate those accounts.
Is it more common that when a person leaves an employer, he/she consolidates that 401k into a single IRA with balances from all old employers?
I have just been lazy and left them in whatever bank they were set up in. But having 6 pre-tax accounts is a little annoying.
I manage the balances āin totalā which means I look to distribute the investments in a diverse array of stuff - large cap, small cap, index funds, international funds, some reits, etc. No crypto. And by āmanageā I mean I tweak where new money goes from time to time to maintain an asset allocation I am comfortable with. I still have stock from Employers 1 and 2 and 4.
I have similar issues with post tax accounts. And I have 3 whole life policies - which I just think of as bond funds.
my ex employer is rolling stuff from vanguard into fidelity, which happens to be where all my other (including current) employers keep their 401k.
so, itās all in fidelity now.
I would guess that it is most common to leave the money in the 401k rather than roll it over. I donāt like the hassle of lots of accounts, so I need justification to open a new one instead of the other way around. Also, my spouse has no interest in the financial side of things, so I try to keep things as straightforward as possible just in case I kick the bucket first.
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I think it is normal to have a bunch of orphaned 401Ks from various employers
But usually when people roll their old 401ks over they try to roll them into their current 401k or a consolidated IRA
So I would say it is odd to have a bunch of random IRAs, I would consolidate the IRAs.
I donāt like having more accounts than needed - personally Iād roll it into whatever platform you prefer and/or the one with the lowest fees. Why complicate life? Itāll probably take under an hour.
However itās not likely hurting you if theyāre all around or below 0.1% fees.
E*TRADE.Checking, My Roth, Wifeās roth, and A Rollover IRA for all of my previous 401ks
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Iāve rolled all my prior accounts and balances into Fidelity. low fees. I like having everything in one place. It gives me size, and size has advantages.
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It isnāt about size, but what you do with it. Or so Iām told.
Vanguard used to give out some freebies and perks to those who had over $1 Million with them but I think they have since moved the goalpost out to $5 Mil
Does Fidelity do something similar?
I have printed off the paperwork twice to roll a former employerās 401k into my Fidelity IRA. I always get to the notary section and then itās āehhhh, Iāll do that some other timeā and it turns into never. Itās a very small amount. The account is with Transamerica. Even if I let it sit there and collect dust it wonāt be worth even $100k when I retire.
Interestingā¦Iāve never needed a notary to roll my accounts over.
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I didnāt need it when I rolled over an account from the employer before this one. I donāt know if itās a TA thing or a Mercer thing, but itās a big enough hassle to keep me from following through on it.
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We have investments at Fidelity, T. Roe Price, and Vanguard.