[throwaway280382]

>You don't need to worry about being locked out of your 401K after being sacked. It's still your money and they have to give you access to it, even after you're sacked. Transfer the money out to a separate 401K account that only you control after you've left the company. (Or don't, because I'm pretty sure they have to keep your account open indefinitely, but IANAL so ask a professional)

You will not be locked out of 401k when you quit but they will charge about $25 per quarter ($100 per year) to maintain your account. I feel it is still a good deal and I left my 401k with my previous employers. so far I have $300k in 401k, so $300/year to maintain the portfolio (across three previous employers) and not messing it up by moving it around seems like a safe deal to me.

[vikingerik]

Moving it around wouldn't mess it up. You can move a 401k from a previous employer to a Rollover IRA at any major custodian. This is not a taxable event (you just move pre-tax money to pre-tax money), so it doesn't matter if you sell whatever it's holding and buy the equivalent at a new custodian. The only reason to need to keep a 401k where it is is if that custodian has some unique investment option that you want there that you can't get elsewhere, but that's pretty rare.

[schemescape]

Note that IRA protections vary from state to state: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/090915/can-my-ira-b...

[xeromal]

I ran into that with one of my old companies where they had a simple IRA and I had a hard time finding that placement investment company for that

[ASinclair]

Another reason to keep the funds in a 401(k) is to allow you to keep using the Backdoor Roth IRA without worrying about the Pro-rata Rule.

[ptero]

You should be able to transfer a rollover IRA to your latest employer's 401k (and I think a regular, non-Roth, non-rollover IRA as well). One could probably enjoy unrestricted security choice of the traditional brokerage, then move funds back to the 401k before doing a backdoor Roth.

That said, I would talk to a financial advisor before moving large sums of money between account types. My 2c.

[throwaway280382]

Well, the mess up is not from the system. It is from my own mistakes :)

[astura]

>but they will charge about $25 per quarter ($100 per year) to maintain your account.

This is entirely dependant on your plan and plan administrator. Some charge nothing some charge much more than $100/year (I was paying over $250/quarter with one 401k).

[thunky]

Converting a 401k to an IRA can mess up future backdoor Roth conversions as well.