Lol, yup. Put money on your Roth 401k and pay the current (historically low) tax rates now. I personally keep my 401k balance 50/50 between Roth and traditional 401k to give me some flexibility for the tax consequences when I need the money.
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You're the buffoon @4lya. That's the most idiotic thing I've heard in a long time, and trust me, there's a lot of crap being said on this site in particular. I'm thinking you never heard of a Roth IRA or 401K? LOL
401k is for foolish buffoons. By the time you retire the tax rate will devour all gains. Unless you think that tax rates will drop. 401k is nothing more than wall street cannon fodder. TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN WHILE YOU STILL HAVE A CHANCE.
Actually, Intel's 401K is awesome. You aren't tied to a list of choices they give you (which most people think they are). You can invest in ANY mutual fund or ETF out there over in BrokerageLink. You just can't buy individual stocks or other oddities that you can if you're investing outside of your 401K. If you don't know how to get your money into BrokerageLink to manage it yourself, call a Fidelity NetBenefits rep and chat with them about it. There's a process which I don't recall off the top of my head. Something like... liquidate whatever funds you want to move over and then when they are sitting in cash, you move them and then buy whatever you want with them.
As for Targetdate funds.... I am NOT a fan of them for various reasons. Sure, you can 'set it and forget it' which is why most people are in them. However, they charge pretty dang high fees and while I am one to be OK with paying high fees, ONLY if there's a money Manager actively managing the fund AND I think he can beat the market buy a lot. I refuse to pay that for a Targetdate index fund type account.
There's a lot of chatter on this very topic over at MMC on IB (Money Matters Club on InsideBlue). If you're still an employee and this topic piques your interest I suggest you search MMC for the info. It's a great financial club that I wish we had access to after we leave Intel. sob
@-geh (and anyone else thinking of rolling your funds into an IRA (a"as different broker") ... if you plan on retiring early (or let go and can't find another job), and will need money from your retirement to live on (before you hit age 59.5)... then you must leave your money in your 401K, you CANNOT roll it into an IRA or you'll pay a penalty (on top of taxes) if you withdraw money from your IRA.
In other words.... you can withdraw money from your 401K penaltyfree IF you stop working in the year that you reach age 55 (or later). Please note that you can't stop working at age 54 or earlier, and then wait till you hit age 55. The tax law doesn't work that way. Stupid, I know.
So, bottomline is you'd have penaltyfree access to your retirement funds between ages 55 and 59.5 FROM YOUR 401K ONLY (which is when you can normally take money out penaltyfree).
Hopefully this makes sense. :)
@bjr. 401k has nothing to do with being a manager or not. The employee owns that and can contribute (or not) as desired. It is only stock options where your grade level or leadership status are important. In fact, for the run-of-the-mill employee, there are no more stock options and haven't been for a long time. They get RSUs, the amount depending on grade level and ranking / rating during Focal. Hence the issue of 'stealth layoffs' based on SL4/5. Are you sure you are an Intel employee/ex-employee? You would know these things if you were.
Intel's 401k can be managed by you if you prefer. Many employees chose not to and went with the life stage funds -- autopilot rebalancing based on age etc. My advisor says the performance has been fair to middling but nothing egregiously wrong. I went in and got rid of most of the life stage funds and went to some lower cost funds and Blackrock. With ERP, I'm going to roll the fund over to a different brokerage, though. Now, if you are talking the RC and not your own personal 401k, yes the performance has been historically poor, which is why a couple of years ago they changed the rules so you can invest it yourself instead of some committee at Intel doing it. As to the percentage of RC each year, that has been declining steadily year over year, from 12 percent in the glory days to 5 percent (or was it down to 4?) last year. I would have preferred Intel 401k matching, but for those folks who were there during the PC boom years (I was not), the 12 percent RCA was definitely the better deal. While Intel's RC has declined over the years, it is still within the industry average and not a surprising reduction, given that the business is down year over year as well.
Advice: take advantage of fidelitys Low cost Vanguard & blackrock funds in your 401k...
Are you talking about the Intel 5% contribution or the investment options? Investment options are OK for index funds, lacks REITs, though.
because intel is poor and lack of respect to its engineers. Managers and above, 401k and stock options are fat.