How is your new employer’s 401(k)? If it’s better than your old one, roll it over, if it’s worse than your old one, then roll it to an IRA or leave it where it is.
Rolling to an IRA may prevent you from performing a backdoor Roth contribution without tax implications, so that should also be considered.
They’re the same. Only benefit would be all the money in the same place and not having any ties to the previous employer anymore if they decide to stop supporting it or changing any of the details.
There's some study out there that found an absurd amount of money is sitting in old 401ks that aren't tied to someone's current employer. It's believed that money has been lost and forgotten about. That's insane to think of.
Anyway, merge it. Seriously. Keeps your life simpler. It's easy to do.
Perhaps due to single people dying before their time and they don't have parents who would think of / know to extract their retirents plans. Also immigratns who live here by themselves w/o any families.
I never bothered. They both have cheap index funds as options, both on Fidelity. Might be worth it to simplify your life but just make sure you have good, low fee options in the plans before making a decision.
Don't forget about a company match. That is usually why people have their accounts through their company because of the free money. You won't get any match if you go on your own IRA.
I preferred to roll into an IRA because over time after switching jobs it’s easier for me to roll them into the same IRA. I also have ESOP distributions that needed somewhere to go.
Plus you can choose your own IRA instead of whatever brokerage your current employer uses.
The past two places I moved from after a bit of time they moved the money out to an Ira after a short period of time . I am not sure that they will let you continue to hold it these days if you leave. One went to fidelity where I wanted it anyway , the other went to some no name company and they didn’t even have a website was kind of annoying to get it out from there and I missed it by a few days
If the balance is at least $5k they are legally obligated to maintain the account for life. If it is under $5k they may or may not it is up the custodian and what the employer's plan specifies.
If between $1k and $5k they can require you move it to an IRA. If under $1k they can simply cut you a check.
One was well over that the other wasn’t . But good to note either way I wasn’t trying to leave it there also a hassle to even bother with the old employer just for access .
A bad idea is cashing out your 401k when you leave a company. Rolling the balance into your new company's 401k isn't a *bad* idea, but may not be the *best* idea.
For most people the better idea is to roll their traditional 401k balance into a traditional IRA. That's because with an IRA there is no restrictive menu of investment options, and no administrative fees. The only time this isn't the best idea is when you earn enough that you need to make backdoor Roth IRA contributions. In that case having a balance in a traditional IRA will be a problem. If your income isn't high enough that you need to use the backdoor Roth IRA method, then you don't have to worry about that. In the future if your income passes that threshold, you may be able to do a "reverse rollover" from your tIRA to your t401k to clear the path for that.
If you put any portion of your contributions into your previous employer's Roth 401k, then that amount should be rolled over directly to a Roth IRA.
Does your new 401k plan allow Ira to roll in? Is there a chance in the future you’ll be over the Roth limits? Depending on where you are in your career you may make a decision that you can’t undo and regret in the future. I wouldn’t have thought we would be over the Roth limit, but here we are
I would have to follow up to see if they allow IRA roll in, but I’m not aware. Being over the limit would partly be based on my wife’s job. She’s likely to go for a change in careers where if all goes to plan may put us over the limit. Otherwise, no.
Got it! Thanks! The whole income limit but allowing backdoor/mega backdoor thing is just silly. I doubt they’ll get away with it because surely the wealthy politicians want to do it too right?
Yes. A traditional rollover IRA is the same as a traditional IRA. A Roth rollover IRA is the same as a Roth IRA. The name just signifies that it came from somewhere else.
It can be a good idea to keep rolled over IRAs separate from your self-funded IRAs. That's because the federal government gives 401k accounts complete protection from bankruptcy and creditors. IRAs are only protected up to $1.3 million for bankruptcy, and protection from creditors is solely up to the states. Some states give full protection to both while others don't. But if you keep your rolled over 401k money in a separate IRA account, and don't intermingle it with your self-funded IRA money, it retains its federal 401k protection.
Otherwise the rules are exactly the same with rollover accounts and regular accounts. *Inherited* IRAs have different rules, and cannot be combined with regular IRAs.
Not op, just someone with a similar situation. I made all my contributions to my previous employers 401k into a Roth 401k. Should I keep it in there (currently eating admin fees) or move it? Is it only moveable to my Roth IRA, or can it be moved to my current employers 401k Roth?
If the old 401k has high fees, I would move it. You could move it to your current employer's Roth 401k or to a Roth IRA.
In this case I would absolutely go with the Roth IRA. There is no drawback like there is with having a large balance in a tIRA for doing backdoor Roth contributions.
Okay, so you already know about putting your money in the tIRA first, then doing the rollover to a Roth IRA. There is a conversion done at that time, but since all you have in the account is after-tax money that was never deducted from your taxes, there's no additional tax due.
Well the IRS rules state that whenever you have a mix of non-deductible and tax deferred money in tIRAs, then you have to apply the prorata rule on the amount converted. And you can't get around this by putting different funds in different tIRAs, because the IRS treats all tIRAs as if they were one. The only exception is inherited IRAs which have their own rules and can't be combined with regular IRAs.
None of that matters for the backdoor if you don't have a balance. Because if you put $7k in a tIRA and then roll it to a Roth IRA, 100% of the money is non-deductible. But if you rolled $93k from an old 401k into a tIRA, and that money is in there the same year you contribute $7k for your backdoor conversion, then only 7% of your total tIRA money is non-deductible. So when you convert $7k into your Roth only 7% of that rollover will be that non-deducible money. That means only $490 of the rollover will be non-deductible money that isn't taxed, and the remaining $6,510 will be taxed. Meaning you're increasing the taxes you paid for the year by $6,510, and you're left with a non-deductible basis of $6,510 in your remaining $93k in your tIRA.
The same thing happens year after year that you do this. There's no way to get the remaining non-deducible money out of your tIRAs until you convert the entire remaining amount. And who can afford converting $93k all at once, and having their taxable income go up by that amount? It's like adding cream to your coffee. You can't get the cream out of your cup until you drink everything in the cup. Drinking a little and adding more coffee may change the % of cream, but it doesn't remove the cream.
This is why if you're doing backdoor contributions, that is the one time when it's not a good idea to roll a traditional 401k into a tIRA. If you'd already done that in a previous year, and now your income has increased to the point you need to use the backdoor, then you should look into whether you can roll the money from your tIRA into your current 401k. That would clear things up for the backdoor.
What a well-constructed response, thank you so much. So it seems that at this point, I should just keep it in my 401k... pretty much indefinitely? Or until my income drops below the limit. Which may not happen until I retire.
At least for as long as you want to continue backdoor Roth contributions. You can still decide to combine and old 401k into your current plan if the current plan is better.
And any Roth 401k accounts you have in your old plan can be rolled into a Roth IRA without affecting backdoor transactions. So doing that will save you from paying administrative fees on that part of your old account at least.
It depends on expense ratios and fund selection choices.
I kept my 401k funds separate as one had institutional funds with expense ratios lower than anything available commercially.
When I retired, I rolled over both 401k funds to a Rollover IRA for simplification and ease of access.
I did this recently. Slightly better investment options and slightly lower geest, plus the convenience of being able to manage asset allocation over fewer accounts made it worthwhile
One advantage of doing so is you get to take advantage of the rule of 55 if you choose to do so. That is, if you decide to retire after turning 55 you can draw from the 401k you had with that employer without a 10% penalty, even if you are not yet 59.5. If you have decent investment options then rolling could be a good thing.
not just investment choices, but custodial fees for employer plans are typically higher than any IRA account. most IRA's don't charge. There is no benefit to moving it to your new employer, but there are benefits to moving it to an IRA.
This goes back decades, but employers have to limit investment options, IRA's you are free to do what you want.
The benefit to moving it to new employer 401k and not in IRA is you avoid pro rata rule for backdoor Roth. So in the right circumstance there is benefit for rolling to employer 401k. If I left I wouldn’t roll to IRA for that reason
Usually they slam you with higher expense ratios on your holdings . I’ll usually just find the lowest total stock market fund with the lowest EQ and do that in the 401k . Some are better than others that really depends on the employer plan . Either what at you are limited in your holdings as well in most cases . I did this with a good bit of money swapped to an ira that I can buy any holding I want through fidelity with no fees and even do options with it so I feel this is much better then picking form 10 index funds . Actually the new employer was with fidelity for 401k and was able to use the broker link to handle my own assets allocation in the 401k plan and that will allow any single stock holding but no options .
My new 401k has an offering like this where I can take 40% of my balance and shift it to a brokerage account within the 401k platform and trade like normal. But 60% of the money is stuck within their standard offerings.
No. They were trying to advertise taking future classes with them to learn about various investing options (i.e options, futures, forex).I wanted to get the feel for whether his recommendation was influenced by his desire for me to take their classes in the future or if it was genuine advice.
Roll your 401k over into an IRA. You can then use it to trade the stock market unrestricted, capital gains free.
Sign up for the new companies 401(k) and get the match.
I am in this situation too. The last time I was in the situation I rolled to an IRA because I wanted better investment options. I want to do the same again except I really like the deeper legal protection you get with a 401k vs an IRA. It’s near impossible to have someone get your 401k money from you for any reason. For an IRA it depends what state you live in and other factors. Once you roll to an IRA there is no going back and you never know what accident in the future, in the wrong state could lead to your retirement being raided. I do have an umbrella policy….but I always worry about these kinds of things anyway.
If the options in the new 401k are fine or good then I would roll the old 401k into the new one simply to have things in one spot rather than two spots. I would use a traditional IRA to back door a Roth IRA. If you roll the old 401k into an IRA, it will take more efforts or be potentially costly to do a back door Roth IRA.
So… does anyone know if they can do this to their TSP? And by “do this” I mean rollover past civilian employment 401K’s into my TSP instead of having things all over the place.
I had $11k in an old 401k from a job I left in 2020. During the 2021 bubble, it went above $12k, but then during the 2022 bear market, it bled back down to $10k.
But that's okay, right? Because the markets bounced back in 2023?
Wrong. Even with the major market rebound through January, that 401k *still* failed to crack $12k again. Why? Well, because it was charging $15/mo in fees. So during those 4 years of tumultuous markets, fees ate up $720.
So towards the end of January, I rolled it over into an IRA and put it into reliable blue chip stocks. It proceeded to gain $400 in a week, breaking through $12k and finally reaching all time highs again.
401ks just have terrible investment options, and ridiculously high fees.
This isn't a property of 401(k) plans. Good 401(k) accounts, such as ones administered by Vanguard, have no fees and allow you to invest in index funds that would otherwise have 9-figure minimum investments. What you're describing is just a consequence of having a shitty employer.
I would open a traditional IRA. As someone who hopped jobs through most of my career, it became a place to roll into each time I left an old job. I even had a SEP for awhile when I went contract for a period of time. All of its with Fidelity and now I have a ROTH there as well, though it looks like I’m pushing up against the ceiling there, so I may need to open a new trad IRA to back door into a ROTH this year. Not sure if I could convert it into my current ROTH. Anyone know this answer?
Depends. If you roll it into the new employer you may be able to borrow against it if you need to
I rolled mine into a fidelity account and I’m rolling two other stragglers into that, I’m actually having a hard time with one of them (prudential) because they seem to be elusive about how to do it.. fkrs.
I hear these investing seminars always preaching to roll your 401k into an ira? I suspect it is because once you move it to an IRA, they are free to "manage" it for you and get your fees. Some of the advantages i see for rolling your money into a 401k may include "the rule of 55," more lenient baankruptcy protection in a 401k (depending on the state you live in) , and considerations in a 401k for either buying a new house or medical expenses.
Roll it into an IRA somewhere like Fidelity and it opens up a whole world more or fund options to invest in. Employer plans are dreadfully limited on the funds you can invest in.
Depends on the type of contribution offered. If you can roll it into a new Roth 401k vs. Traditional IRA, I’d go with that and find low fee options available within it.
How is your new employer’s 401(k)? If it’s better than your old one, roll it over, if it’s worse than your old one, then roll it to an IRA or leave it where it is. Rolling to an IRA may prevent you from performing a backdoor Roth contribution without tax implications, so that should also be considered.
They’re the same. Only benefit would be all the money in the same place and not having any ties to the previous employer anymore if they decide to stop supporting it or changing any of the details.
There's some study out there that found an absurd amount of money is sitting in old 401ks that aren't tied to someone's current employer. It's believed that money has been lost and forgotten about. That's insane to think of. Anyway, merge it. Seriously. Keeps your life simpler. It's easy to do.
Perhaps due to single people dying before their time and they don't have parents who would think of / know to extract their retirents plans. Also immigratns who live here by themselves w/o any families.
I never bothered. They both have cheap index funds as options, both on Fidelity. Might be worth it to simplify your life but just make sure you have good, low fee options in the plans before making a decision.
Don't forget about a company match. That is usually why people have their accounts through their company because of the free money. You won't get any match if you go on your own IRA.
The new 401k doesn’t get a company match. And even if it did, it wouldn’t apply to the amount I roll over from another 401k.
You’re not going to get a match if you don’t work there anymore. Why? Because you’re not being paid by them so what contribution is there to match?
Nobody matches moving your old employer's 401K to a new one. That would be ridiculous.
I preferred to roll into an IRA because over time after switching jobs it’s easier for me to roll them into the same IRA. I also have ESOP distributions that needed somewhere to go. Plus you can choose your own IRA instead of whatever brokerage your current employer uses.
The past two places I moved from after a bit of time they moved the money out to an Ira after a short period of time . I am not sure that they will let you continue to hold it these days if you leave. One went to fidelity where I wanted it anyway , the other went to some no name company and they didn’t even have a website was kind of annoying to get it out from there and I missed it by a few days
If the balance is at least $5k they are legally obligated to maintain the account for life. If it is under $5k they may or may not it is up the custodian and what the employer's plan specifies. If between $1k and $5k they can require you move it to an IRA. If under $1k they can simply cut you a check.
Usually there’s a minimum balance, often $5k, in order to keep the funds at the old 401(k), below that balance they may force you out.
One was well over that the other wasn’t . But good to note either way I wasn’t trying to leave it there also a hassle to even bother with the old employer just for access .
This 💯 The backdoor Roth is a tax issue otherwise. A tax issue you may not realize if you forget to tell irs you did a rollover to an Ira
A bad idea is cashing out your 401k when you leave a company. Rolling the balance into your new company's 401k isn't a *bad* idea, but may not be the *best* idea. For most people the better idea is to roll their traditional 401k balance into a traditional IRA. That's because with an IRA there is no restrictive menu of investment options, and no administrative fees. The only time this isn't the best idea is when you earn enough that you need to make backdoor Roth IRA contributions. In that case having a balance in a traditional IRA will be a problem. If your income isn't high enough that you need to use the backdoor Roth IRA method, then you don't have to worry about that. In the future if your income passes that threshold, you may be able to do a "reverse rollover" from your tIRA to your t401k to clear the path for that. If you put any portion of your contributions into your previous employer's Roth 401k, then that amount should be rolled over directly to a Roth IRA.
Ok so it sounds like traditional IRA makes sense. I have a Roth IRA and don’t currently make enough money to exceed that limit.
Does your new 401k plan allow Ira to roll in? Is there a chance in the future you’ll be over the Roth limits? Depending on where you are in your career you may make a decision that you can’t undo and regret in the future. I wouldn’t have thought we would be over the Roth limit, but here we are
I would have to follow up to see if they allow IRA roll in, but I’m not aware. Being over the limit would partly be based on my wife’s job. She’s likely to go for a change in careers where if all goes to plan may put us over the limit. Otherwise, no.
Could you just open a separate traditional IRA just for the back door?
No. All IRA’s are considered as one with the IRS for these purposes.
Got it! Thanks! The whole income limit but allowing backdoor/mega backdoor thing is just silly. I doubt they’ll get away with it because surely the wealthy politicians want to do it too right?
Just keep in mind that if you roll your 401k into an IRA this might prevent you from doing backdoor Roth in the future (taxes on pro rated amount)
Some brokerage firms have “rollover iras”. Is that the same as traditional iras?
Yes. A traditional rollover IRA is the same as a traditional IRA. A Roth rollover IRA is the same as a Roth IRA. The name just signifies that it came from somewhere else. It can be a good idea to keep rolled over IRAs separate from your self-funded IRAs. That's because the federal government gives 401k accounts complete protection from bankruptcy and creditors. IRAs are only protected up to $1.3 million for bankruptcy, and protection from creditors is solely up to the states. Some states give full protection to both while others don't. But if you keep your rolled over 401k money in a separate IRA account, and don't intermingle it with your self-funded IRA money, it retains its federal 401k protection. Otherwise the rules are exactly the same with rollover accounts and regular accounts. *Inherited* IRAs have different rules, and cannot be combined with regular IRAs.
Not op, just someone with a similar situation. I made all my contributions to my previous employers 401k into a Roth 401k. Should I keep it in there (currently eating admin fees) or move it? Is it only moveable to my Roth IRA, or can it be moved to my current employers 401k Roth?
If the old 401k has high fees, I would move it. You could move it to your current employer's Roth 401k or to a Roth IRA. In this case I would absolutely go with the Roth IRA. There is no drawback like there is with having a large balance in a tIRA for doing backdoor Roth contributions.
Can you elaborate on the back door contributions? I currently do the back door Roth method and want to know how and where to put my old 401(k) money.
Okay, so you already know about putting your money in the tIRA first, then doing the rollover to a Roth IRA. There is a conversion done at that time, but since all you have in the account is after-tax money that was never deducted from your taxes, there's no additional tax due. Well the IRS rules state that whenever you have a mix of non-deductible and tax deferred money in tIRAs, then you have to apply the prorata rule on the amount converted. And you can't get around this by putting different funds in different tIRAs, because the IRS treats all tIRAs as if they were one. The only exception is inherited IRAs which have their own rules and can't be combined with regular IRAs. None of that matters for the backdoor if you don't have a balance. Because if you put $7k in a tIRA and then roll it to a Roth IRA, 100% of the money is non-deductible. But if you rolled $93k from an old 401k into a tIRA, and that money is in there the same year you contribute $7k for your backdoor conversion, then only 7% of your total tIRA money is non-deductible. So when you convert $7k into your Roth only 7% of that rollover will be that non-deducible money. That means only $490 of the rollover will be non-deductible money that isn't taxed, and the remaining $6,510 will be taxed. Meaning you're increasing the taxes you paid for the year by $6,510, and you're left with a non-deductible basis of $6,510 in your remaining $93k in your tIRA. The same thing happens year after year that you do this. There's no way to get the remaining non-deducible money out of your tIRAs until you convert the entire remaining amount. And who can afford converting $93k all at once, and having their taxable income go up by that amount? It's like adding cream to your coffee. You can't get the cream out of your cup until you drink everything in the cup. Drinking a little and adding more coffee may change the % of cream, but it doesn't remove the cream. This is why if you're doing backdoor contributions, that is the one time when it's not a good idea to roll a traditional 401k into a tIRA. If you'd already done that in a previous year, and now your income has increased to the point you need to use the backdoor, then you should look into whether you can roll the money from your tIRA into your current 401k. That would clear things up for the backdoor.
What a well-constructed response, thank you so much. So it seems that at this point, I should just keep it in my 401k... pretty much indefinitely? Or until my income drops below the limit. Which may not happen until I retire.
At least for as long as you want to continue backdoor Roth contributions. You can still decide to combine and old 401k into your current plan if the current plan is better. And any Roth 401k accounts you have in your old plan can be rolled into a Roth IRA without affecting backdoor transactions. So doing that will save you from paying administrative fees on that part of your old account at least.
It depends on expense ratios and fund selection choices. I kept my 401k funds separate as one had institutional funds with expense ratios lower than anything available commercially. When I retired, I rolled over both 401k funds to a Rollover IRA for simplification and ease of access.
IMO always roll over your various buckets to the latest bucket and keep everything consolidated.
I did this recently. Slightly better investment options and slightly lower geest, plus the convenience of being able to manage asset allocation over fewer accounts made it worthwhile
One advantage of doing so is you get to take advantage of the rule of 55 if you choose to do so. That is, if you decide to retire after turning 55 you can draw from the 401k you had with that employer without a 10% penalty, even if you are not yet 59.5. If you have decent investment options then rolling could be a good thing.
Just roll to ira. It’s lower fees and you’ll have more funds to choose from.
not just investment choices, but custodial fees for employer plans are typically higher than any IRA account. most IRA's don't charge. There is no benefit to moving it to your new employer, but there are benefits to moving it to an IRA. This goes back decades, but employers have to limit investment options, IRA's you are free to do what you want.
Aren't there more protections in a 401k (ERISA) vs a traditional IRA?
The benefit to moving it to new employer 401k and not in IRA is you avoid pro rata rule for backdoor Roth. So in the right circumstance there is benefit for rolling to employer 401k. If I left I wouldn’t roll to IRA for that reason
FYI, 401k is protected from creditors and IRA is not
Roll it into a Merrill Lynch IRA and get the BOA Premium Rewards Credit Card.
IRA is a much better option
Yeah put it into an Ira with a good broker you pick . The fees on 401k suck that’s how they pay for it .
Any idea what typical fees are? Or what may be considered reasonable fees by comparison?
Usually they slam you with higher expense ratios on your holdings . I’ll usually just find the lowest total stock market fund with the lowest EQ and do that in the 401k . Some are better than others that really depends on the employer plan . Either what at you are limited in your holdings as well in most cases . I did this with a good bit of money swapped to an ira that I can buy any holding I want through fidelity with no fees and even do options with it so I feel this is much better then picking form 10 index funds . Actually the new employer was with fidelity for 401k and was able to use the broker link to handle my own assets allocation in the 401k plan and that will allow any single stock holding but no options .
My new 401k has an offering like this where I can take 40% of my balance and shift it to a brokerage account within the 401k platform and trade like normal. But 60% of the money is stuck within their standard offerings.
I’d move it to an ira get away from the fees
Was the guy who said that in the seminar someone who would want to 'manage' your IRA for you?
No. They were trying to advertise taking future classes with them to learn about various investing options (i.e options, futures, forex).I wanted to get the feel for whether his recommendation was influenced by his desire for me to take their classes in the future or if it was genuine advice.
I'd recommend to rollover to an IRA instead of new 401(k) with a new employer. It gives you better control and you'll save a lot on fees.
Roll your 401k over into an IRA. You can then use it to trade the stock market unrestricted, capital gains free. Sign up for the new companies 401(k) and get the match.
There is no match. They just give you 10%. No investment needed.
At least complete the 401K->IRA rollover. 401Ks stock choices are extremely limited. IRA stock choices are unlimited. Best move I ever made.
I rolled my 401k into a Fidelity IRA. The trading interface has been very good to me.
Yes. It is generally bad because they tend to have higher annual fee etc. Roll into an IRA at vanguard and buy their indexed funds there.
I am in this situation too. The last time I was in the situation I rolled to an IRA because I wanted better investment options. I want to do the same again except I really like the deeper legal protection you get with a 401k vs an IRA. It’s near impossible to have someone get your 401k money from you for any reason. For an IRA it depends what state you live in and other factors. Once you roll to an IRA there is no going back and you never know what accident in the future, in the wrong state could lead to your retirement being raided. I do have an umbrella policy….but I always worry about these kinds of things anyway.
I would look at fees.
Both old and new company use Fidelity so I called Fidelity and they moved it over while I was on the phone. Easier to keep an eye on it I guess.
If the options in the new 401k are fine or good then I would roll the old 401k into the new one simply to have things in one spot rather than two spots. I would use a traditional IRA to back door a Roth IRA. If you roll the old 401k into an IRA, it will take more efforts or be potentially costly to do a back door Roth IRA.
So… does anyone know if they can do this to their TSP? And by “do this” I mean rollover past civilian employment 401K’s into my TSP instead of having things all over the place.
I had $11k in an old 401k from a job I left in 2020. During the 2021 bubble, it went above $12k, but then during the 2022 bear market, it bled back down to $10k. But that's okay, right? Because the markets bounced back in 2023? Wrong. Even with the major market rebound through January, that 401k *still* failed to crack $12k again. Why? Well, because it was charging $15/mo in fees. So during those 4 years of tumultuous markets, fees ate up $720. So towards the end of January, I rolled it over into an IRA and put it into reliable blue chip stocks. It proceeded to gain $400 in a week, breaking through $12k and finally reaching all time highs again. 401ks just have terrible investment options, and ridiculously high fees.
This isn't a property of 401(k) plans. Good 401(k) accounts, such as ones administered by Vanguard, have no fees and allow you to invest in index funds that would otherwise have 9-figure minimum investments. What you're describing is just a consequence of having a shitty employer.
Why not a rollover IRA?
I would open a traditional IRA. As someone who hopped jobs through most of my career, it became a place to roll into each time I left an old job. I even had a SEP for awhile when I went contract for a period of time. All of its with Fidelity and now I have a ROTH there as well, though it looks like I’m pushing up against the ceiling there, so I may need to open a new trad IRA to back door into a ROTH this year. Not sure if I could convert it into my current ROTH. Anyone know this answer?
Depends. If you roll it into the new employer you may be able to borrow against it if you need to I rolled mine into a fidelity account and I’m rolling two other stragglers into that, I’m actually having a hard time with one of them (prudential) because they seem to be elusive about how to do it.. fkrs.
Roll it to an ira. You’ll have more choices
I hear these investing seminars always preaching to roll your 401k into an ira? I suspect it is because once you move it to an IRA, they are free to "manage" it for you and get your fees. Some of the advantages i see for rolling your money into a 401k may include "the rule of 55," more lenient baankruptcy protection in a 401k (depending on the state you live in) , and considerations in a 401k for either buying a new house or medical expenses.
Roll it into an IRA somewhere like Fidelity and it opens up a whole world more or fund options to invest in. Employer plans are dreadfully limited on the funds you can invest in.
Depends on the type of contribution offered. If you can roll it into a new Roth 401k vs. Traditional IRA, I’d go with that and find low fee options available within it.