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Who do you use for your 401k / Roth, etc?

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kranky said:
You open an IRA account, and send in the check with instructions to deposit it in the IRA account. Pretty much just like a checking deposit by mail.
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He was commenting about the OP saying he had to write a check to contribute to his 401K, not an IRA account.
 
ive used paychex,citistreet, ing, fidelity, t. rowe, and vanguard for various 401k and IRAs and I like Vanguard the most. paychex the least.
 
It's only a 401k if your employer is sponsoring it.
If you leave the employer, you can keep it as a 401k, but your employer will no longer contribute to it and you will be stuck with conservative choices.

You can easily "roll over" your 401k into any brand of IRA you want.
IRAs have less conservative choices and usually more of them than a 401k.

I use Vanguard for an IRA (was an old 401k) and Merrill Lynch for 401k.
Both seem fine to me.
 
I recommend Vanguard for IRA rollovers from a company 401k. If you don't know what you're doing, you can put 100% of the money into their Target <year> fund and be done with it.

Our 401k just upgraded to offering Vanguard funds this year, which is a huge improvement over the second-rate funds that it used to offer.

Fidelity isn't bad, but they've historically pushed actively-managed mutual funds. They now offer good index funds too, but Vanguard did it first.
 
Jeff7 said:
Yup. American Funds, in my case. Expensive funds. Bleh.

IRA: Vanguard
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I hated American Funds that my previous job used. Or the person dealing with my 401k there. 100% of my funds were stuck in a money market account for over 3 months! I should have checked it more often..
 
It depends on what your objectives are.

If you're looking for companies that have lower fees, great research and easy money movement and management, then you really can't go wrong with the obvious choices of Etrade (cheaper mutual fund cost), Ameritrade, Fidelity (cheaper stock/ETF costs).

If you're the type of "set it and forget it" type of guy ith your investments, then open an account with Vanguard. Their funds have ultra cheap expense ratios and returns are good with their index funds. You can electronically add money every month and won't get charged additional trade fees for that new money that's invested.

If you've done your research and want better returns than an index fund and willing to pay more for that ETF/Mutual Fund in expense ratios, then Etrade is a good balance. Their stock/ETFs are $10 and Mutal Funds are $20--very reasonable for a big brokerage. They also offer Vanguard ETFs, of course, but you'll have to pay excess trade fees every time you want to buy/add shares of that Vanguard ETF fund, whereas with Vanguard.com, it'd be free. With mutual funds (Vanguard or others) purchased through Etrade, you can set it up that it electronically draws from your checking account on a periodic basis of your desire, thereby avoiding excess trade fees.

Here are some existing Brokerage offers to sweeten the pie a little bit:
http://thefinancebuff.com/huge-bonu...schwab-td-ameritrade-etrade-merrill-edge.html
 
Imported said:
I hated American Funds that my previous job used. Or the person dealing with my 401k there. 100% of my funds were stuck in a money market account for over 3 months! I should have checked it more often..
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There was probably a time when a money market account would have been a safe, though not terribly profitable, place to park money.
The fund there now (RABXX) is charging a 0.66% expense ratio (that's the discounted rate), for a 0.00% return, which has been that way since this particular fund started in mid-2009.
 
dr150 said:
If you've done your research and want better returns than an index fund and willing to pay more for that ETF/Mutual Fund in expense ratios
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and are willing to see if your research is enough to beat an industry that spends every waking moment of every day researching the same things you are
 
Mermaidman said:
Sort reviews from worst to best

It's a fake AmEx card that is managed by some outfit called "FIA Card Services." You don't get regular AmEx customer service, and you can't use the AmEx website to manage it. In the reviews, some people were getting charges rejected constantly, which would be a huge problem for me.
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I have both fidelity 401k/IRA and the amex fidelity card.

The 2% works fine, and actually you can convert it to a check as well. The cash out conversion is tiered and you can cash our anywhere from like $50 onwards; maybe even less than 50 as well. A secret is that the cash out is actually one of the best conversions out there at 1.8% cash back essentially. So instead of getting $200 into your IRA you can get $180 cash back or something like that. Note i haven't done this since last year so it may have changed since then.

Anyway, service seems ok. I missed a payment recently but they refunded the late fee and interest charges although i had to ask for each one specifically.
 
Mermaidman said:
Sort reviews from worst to best

It's a fake AmEx card that is managed by some outfit called "FIA Card Services." You don't get regular AmEx customer service, and you can't use the AmEx website to manage it. In the reviews, some people were getting charges rejected constantly, which would be a huge problem for me.
Click to expand...

FIA operated the 2% Schwab card as well. Like someone else said, I use the card, the bill comes every month, and then I pay the bill. Never had a problem with the card in the ~2 years I've had the card.

sunzt said:
The 2% works fine, and actually you can convert it to a check as well. The cash out conversion is tiered and you can cash our anywhere from like $50 onwards; maybe even less than 50 as well. A secret is that the cash out is actually one of the best conversions out there at 1.8% cash back essentially. So instead of getting $200 into your IRA you can get $180 cash back or something like that. Note i haven't done this since last year so it may have changed since then.
Click to expand...

You can direct the 2% into a normal account. There is no conversion needed. If you earn $200, you get $200 deposited.
 
401k is handled by the Hartford group, which is part of MassMutual I believe. IRA is with Mass Mutual. Wife's thrift savings plan is with the government. We are not eligible for a Roth IRA (make too much $$), but my 401k has a roth option in it that I do qualify for and contribute to.
 
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