401k question

[Shaggy]

For those of you who have had several jobs over your career, what do you do with your 401k's? Do you combine them or just have 5 or 6 different accounts?

Does merging them cost you a pretty penny? I have two 401k's now and I'd love to combine them but I don't want to lose any money out of it.

Sorry, don't know a whole lot about 401k's.

 

[ArnoldBabar]

At this point my portfolio is mostly tied up in pizza coupons.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Shaggy, You can roll over 401(K) plans from past jobs into a single IRA account. There is no cost involved. It's just a matter of how you want to invest the money. You can find no-load mutual funds or discount brokerage firms that won't charge you anything to do the roll over and won't have any annual fees. One benefit of rolling old 401(K) plans into a single IRA is that with an IRA, you have infinitely more choices. The typical 401(K) plan gives you a choice of a limited number of mutual funds that your employer has partnered with. If you are comfortable with mutual funds, with a rollover, you can take the money to any fund company or companies you like. You can invest in any fund or funds you like. If you want to invest in a basket of stocks, you can roll over your plans into a brokerage account and buy and sell stocks. A second benefit is that it makes tracking your money easier, because you can keep it all in one place, if that is what your prefer.