More basic retirement questions

[moolarkey]

I would check into their rules for when you can access that money, any rules for transferring it to another fund manager. Our company used them for a long time, then switched to Lincoln. Most of us thought leaving money there was a good idea, not having all our eggs in one basket sort of thing. Then years later we found we couldn't just transfer all the money anywhere else but only 10% a year for 10 years (through another employee so we all asked and were told the same thing). Also, they had rules about being able to touch that money that were really strict, whereas with Lincoln, it is easier to access your money in an emergency and that caused some serious hardships for a few people. We didn't learn that you can't just transfer it all at once (we could have if we'd done it at the time the company changed to Lincoln) about 4 years ago so I started moving money. This year's transfer just went through last week. Lincoln has told me that other companies do not have the rule that you can't just transfer your money anytime and that most other companies allow accessing your funds in an emergency that TIAA doesn't.

Becuase they only do 10% a year, my money won't all have transferred when I do retire, expected at 65 but hoping for 63. Either way, at that point I can move my money or I can just draw it down. Lincoln has suggested I just draw that money down first. I think I'll still have about 80K still in TIAA if I retire at 65.

I know this isn't the information you are looking for but I would be asking - when can I access money, what are the requirements. If I want to transfer it to another fund, what are the restrictions? My experience and that of an awful lot of co-workers could be different than yours, depending on how these funds were originally set up.

[chimera]

Retirement Annuity (RA), Group Retirement Annuity (GRA), Supplemental Retirement Annuity (SRA), Group Supplemental Retirement Annuity (GSRA)

The accounts with two
One is normally employer contributions and the other is employee contributions





I had no problem doing a direct rollover to my TSP for the majority of the money in my account

The TIAA traditional has the silly 10 year distribution clause. You should be able to rebalance the investments and move that money to other investment types prior to doing a rollover to avoid it. Mine was a small portion so I left it just in case I want to move stuff around into real estate option at a later date.

[mrsdoe]

Mar 16, 2017 19:09:10 GMT -5 chimera said:

Retirement Annuity (RA), Group Retirement Annuity (GRA), Supplemental Retirement Annuity (SRA), Group Supplemental Retirement Annuity (GSRA)

The accounts with two
One is normally employer contributions and the other is employee contributions





I had no problem doing a direct rollover to my TSP for the majority of the money in my account

The TIAA traditional has the silly 10 year distribution clause. You should be able to rebalance the investments and move that money to other investment types prior to doing a rollover to avoid it. Mine was a small portion so I left it just in case I want to move stuff around into real estate option at a later date.

His TDA plans are his contributions only. The DC plans are his and his employers. He's not a public employee so tsp doesn't apply to us. Further we can't have him roll old plans into an Ira because we make too much $ to do a Roth IRA so we have to do the back door option. I think he can roll stuff into his new plan but the investment options aren't great for it (or really any of the plans).

I'm confused about all the talk about Tiaa traditional and Tiaa real estate on bogle heads. He has like 2k on Tiaa traditional at 7%. I have no idea what the 10year rule means.

[mrsdoe]

I think his employer does 4% now and dh does 7%. We were going to bump him up to 20% to hit the 18k max but I was confused about the investment options and the difference between the plans and I also started to worry that investing in something lower cost and I could almost understand in a taxable acct would be better. Ive barely started to understand my 401k so I'm working up hill here.

[krisandgrace]

If your H has a current account with TIAA CREF he can meet with an advisor for free to go over all his accounts. I do this every few years to keep on track.

[mrsdoe]

Mar 16, 2017 22:09:25 GMT -5 krisandgrace said:

If your H has a current account with TIAA CREF he can meet with an advisor for free to go over all his accounts. I do this every few years to keep on track.

We've done that and that's how we are at this point but most of his investments have a 1%+ ER and we've never felt they explained a thing to us.