Any reason to stay with TIAA-Cref?

[Anonymous]

I have an old 403b with about $1million in it with Tiaa-Cref. My new 403b is with Vanguard (as is my very modest brokerage account). Should I roll everything over to Vanguard (which has slightly lower fees) or should I keep all or some money at TIAA for safety or in the event I want to buy an annuity? For what it is worth, I plan to retire in 6 years.

[Anonymous]

Where is your Roth IRA?
Should have never had that much money in a 403b unless it up to the match and ended up being 1 million. The fees and investment choices have been eating your returns since you opened it.
You don't want to buy annuity. Buy a dividend ETF in a regular investment account if you want steady income.

[Anonymous]

My Roth is also with Vanguard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where is your Roth IRA?
Should have never had that much money in a 403b unless it up to the match and ended up being 1 million. The fees and investment choices have been eating your returns since you opened it.
You don't want to buy annuity. Buy a dividend ETF in a regular investment account if you want steady income.

This is bad advice. A taxable account is almost never going to be better than a 403b/401k. First of all, you pay income tax today so you have 25% less money to invest. Then you pay tax on dividends every year, plus 15% on the gain when you sell -- whereas you pay 0% on both in the 403b. Yes, you pay income tax on the withdrawal, but that's equivalent to the income tax you paid for the taxable account (and likely lower, since you're withdrawing in retirement when you have less income). Assuming you at least have some kind of S&P500 index in your 403b, you'd have to beat this by at least 15% in your taxable account (and probably more like 25% with dividend-tax drag) to make this worth it.

But to answer OP's question, yes, go ahead and transfer to Vanguard. I agree with PP that the annuity is not worth it.

[Anonymous]

Some people really like the TIAA Trad - it could be a good "bond" portion of your investment portfolio, especially if it's older and has a good locked-in rate of return.

[Anonymous]

TIAA annuities are very good. If you think you may want to go that way, it's a reason to keep at least some of the funds there.

There are some boglehead TIAA-CREF experts - I have found their explanations clearer than those offered by TIAA.

Here is their TIAA wiki
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/TIAA

[Anonymous]

We stayed in TIAA. I have mixed feelings.
The investments did fine.
The advisors and staff are not all fiduciaries and have incentives to get you to bring in money, trade, annuitize.
You have to specify with fiduciary that you want them to act as fiduciary during conversation.
Some of the Trad accounts MUST be annuitized into a TPA to get anything beyond the RMD out and you can only get 10 percent a year out. Maybe it said that somewhere but we never caught on. It's employer contributions.