401k & Roth 401k Rollover to IRA & Roth IRA

Investing
#1

Hey Jeremy!

I’m a huge fan, I stay up to date on your site and your social media pages. I really appreciate how helpful your content has been for me - I am 28. My question is about my Roth & Pre-Tax 401k and the rollover strategy to Roth & Pre-Tax IRA accounts. I was COVID related laid off 6 months ago from my previous employer and after reading your posts realize I need to rollover my old 401k to an IRA for multiple reasons.

Current Account Balance - $30,000
Roth Rollover from company #1: $6,000
Roth Contributions with company #2: $800
$6,800 Roth total
Pre-Tax Rollover from company #1: $20,000
Pre-Tax Contributions with company #2: $3,200
$23,200 Pre-Tax total

Both of my (2) previous employers allowed both Roth and Standard 401k contributions. When I went from company #1 to company #2, I rolled everything into company #2 401k and continued investing the same % to Roth and Pre-Tax. I am with company #3 now but do not plan to use their 401k, especially since there is no match. So the 401k account I want to rollover has both Roth and Pre-Tax contributions from both previous employers. I was wondering what the best way to approach this is.

Should I open both a Roth IRA and Standard IRA OR should I try to combine all investments into 1 account?

It looks like you prefer TDIF accounts with Vanguard and Fidelity, would that hold true in this scenario?

Thanks for the help!

#2

What are the expense ratios & do you like the fund options available with your current 401K (Job #2)?

You can leave them there if fees are low and you like the options. Otherwise I would roll it over into Traditional & Roth IRAs with Vanguard or similar. You would probably want to open those accounts for investing now anyways going forward if you are deciding not to use Company #3’s 401k.

#3

Hey Matt

The fees are over 1% and I do not like the current fund options.

So it sounds like my best plan is to open (1) Traditional IRA and (1) Roth IRA. I do not want a big tax bill this year so converting the Traditional funds to Roth does not seem like a good choice.