Why Should I consolidate Retirement Accounts?
The average person switches jobs several times in their life. It is very rare that someone work for the same company the entire length of his/her career. Most companies offer a retirement plan in the form of a 401k, so the average person may come into ownership of several 401k accounts by the time they retire.
When you change jobs and your new company offers its own 401k, what should you do? You may be interested in a 401k rollover to IRA.
Transferring your 401K to an IRA fund comes with several benefits. I would like to talk now about a few of them.
For starters, imagine someone who changes companies 3 times in their life. That would leave them with 3 401k’s from their previous employers and 1 from their current employer. That can get really messy for you. That means you would have 4 times the paperwork to keep up with and monitor to manage your portfolio the way you should. If you are like me, that extra paperwork may cause you to be lax in managing the account and could lead to financial ruin in your retirement years.
Putting your previous 401k accounts into an IRA will consolidate your retirement plans and make life a lot easier. You will reduce paper and be able to pay better attention where it counts. Changing jobs 3 times would not matter. You could roll as many 401k’s as you’d like into the one IRA. And the person above would only have 2 accounts instead of 4 (1 IRA and 1 401K with the current employer.
By leaving your 401K plans in the management of your previous employers you also increase the risk of losing your retirement savings. Those companies may go under and leave you with next to nothing. But rolling over the accounts all into your personal IRA with a financial institution reduces your risk factor a great deal.
And the ultimate benefit is that you leave yourself in control of your own future instead of having others do it for you.
The 401K offers to match your investment 100%, and you don’t see an offer like that from most investment opportunities. So take advantage of it and contribute the maximum that the employer will match. Then put the extra funds into your IRA.






































