It's not hard, just kind of a pain in the butt. If you are married your spouse needs to sign off on the transfer with a notarized signature.

If you are getting close to the Roth IRA income limit it may be better to roll into your 401k to allow you to do a backdoor roth. If that is not a concern, call vanguard or fidelity and let them do it. Moves pretty quick - some holdings they can xfer in kind, so you don't even have to liquidate and lose a few days while the funds are moving.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd roll them into something like a Vanguard IRA so you have more control and choices than you would in your current 401k

NP- does this make them Roth IRAs?

NNP. No. Roth just means that the income taxes are already paid on the money, so future distributions will be tax-free. If you just do a regular 401(k) rollover, the taxes have been deferred and they remain deferred until you withdraw the money during retirement. However, you could do a rollover and a Roth conversion if you wanted to, paying the taxes now.

Short answer, as always: Talk to Vanguard. They'll take care of you.

Anonymous wrote:I'd roll them into something like a Vanguard IRA so you have more control and choices than you would in your current 401k

NP- does this make them Roth IRAs?

I'd roll them into something like a Vanguard IRA so you have more control and choices than you would in your current 401k

I'd like to consolidate several old 401k plans into my new one. Has anyone done this before? Is it easy/hard? time consuming? How do I get started?

TIA!