What to do with an old 401k account
You should track down and move your old accounts, because many plans charge monthly maintenance fees that can eventually drain your balance to zero. Finding them might require calling your former employers directly to regain access. Be careful where you move the money, as rolling a 401k into a Traditional IRA makes future Backdoor Roth contributions tax-heavy and unfeasible.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Rolling over old 401(k) accounts into a newly opened Traditional IRA at a low-cost brokerage like Fidelity, Schwab, or Vanguard.Did this help you?
- 2Rolling former 401(k) accounts directly into the new employer's active 401(k) plan to avoid opening a Traditional IRA and keeping Backdoor Roth IRA options clean.Did this help you?
- 3Rolling the old account into a new employer's 401k plan.Did this help you?
- 4Opening a rollover IRA at a major brokerage and moving the funds there.Did this help you?
- 5Using the Department of Labor's Retirement Savings Lost and Found database or calling former HR departments to track down lost accounts.Did this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I now have 2 401ks that I've not touched since leaving the jobs related to them.”source ↗
“I guess I'm unsure about how to find out about the older one (call my old job about it?) and then what to do with them once I do have access.”source ↗
“I have had instances where my old 401k account charged a monthly maintenance fee after I left the company.”source ↗
“I'd like to share my current situation and see if anyone has feedback on how I should move forward with old 401k accounts.”source ↗
“I received a call from a Financial Advisor because my 401k Account for Job 1 is closing due to the company being acquired”source ↗
“Can I backdoor Roth annually, or since I will always have a Traditional IRA from the leftover 401k amount I have, will I be unable to backdoor? I read that if I already have a Traditional IRA it makes Backdooring very tax tricky or unfeasible.”source ↗
“Shit. I just found my old 401k and it seems this is what happened. It now has $1 in it and it had at least a few thousand in it when I quit. Ugh! What was even the point.”source ↗
“Well apparently the one got emptied out through fees so I'm definitely not leaving the other one where it is.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 3What to do with an HSA after changing jobs
- 7Why is rolling over a retirement account online so confusing?
- 4How to handle 401(k) contributions and employer matches when changing jobs
- 15What do I do with an inherited IRA?
- 8Migrating a child Active Directory into a parent domain
- 5Traditional vs Roth 457b and employer retirement account choices