New member and just retired

[nerkdawg]

Hi all

I have visited the site in the past, but never posted.

I just retired on 1 April 2014 after 33 years with the federal government at age 55. My wife, a teacher, will be retiring at the end of the school year.

We are lucky to have a good pension (my CSRS and wife's smaller STRS). We have the majority of our funds in the TSP and a 457 plan. We have no debts (a small mortgage with enough funds in taxable accounts to pay off, just waiting until pension checks are final to be sure of cash flow).

I am planning to roll a portion of my TSP (probably a little over $100K) to an IRA and then gradually convert it to a Roth IRA. I plan to use ETrade and no transaction fee mutual funds (that is where my taxable accounts are).

Anyone else use ETrade for there IRAs?

Looking forward to enjoying retirement!

[Fishingmn]

Congrats!

I, like a lot of people here, use Vanguard and low cost index funds so no help on eTrade

[retire2020]

Congrats and welcome to the forum. Fidelity and Schwab are what I use..and they both have many no fee mutual funds.

Use ORP for how much to convert every year from IRA-->TIRA
Retirement Calculator - Parameter Form

[seraphim]

Welcome.

I use Vanguard, not familiar with ETrade.

Make sure you check out the expense ratios on any funds before you transfer money. Then compare them to Vanguards.

We did the same when we both retired - DW also a teacher - as well. 403b and 527s into Vanguard funds.

[seraphim]

"Fidelity and Schwab are what I use..and they both have many no fee mutual funds."

A no fee mutual fund? They're absolutely free?

[nerkdawg]

Seraphim - the funds do have management/admin fees. There are no added ETrade transaction fees (no commission to buy or sell).

I have been using mostly T Rowe Price funds in my taxable accounts. I'll have to take a closer look at Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab.

I guess I have a little comfort level with ETrade as I have had an account there for a long time.

Retire2020-thanks for the orp tip.

[gauss]

I had ETrade for a while after my Brown&Co. sold out to them. I closed ETrade after they started charging me fees for not regularly trading or something like that.

These days I have my brokerage assets in Fidelity. No Fees for not trading and they were able to handle the individual Bond that I purchased a few years back. I have most of my assets in low-cost balanced Mutual Funds at Vanguard.

-gauss

[seraphim]

"Seraphim - the funds do have management/admin fees. There are no added ETrade transaction fees (no commission to buy or sell).
"

Yea - I was kind of being tongue-in-cheek lol

But seriously - how does ETrade make it's money, if I use their services to buy funds, and all I pay is that fund's ER? Are the ER fees higher when purchased through ETrade, or do they get a 12b-1 commission from the funds?

[MRG]

I believe they have 1400 NTF funds. The rest there's a tranaction fee, no 12b1 fees. There's a post on boggleheads that compares popular Vanguard funds to what you can get on etrade NTF.

http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/E-Trade

I'm not an etrade investor so fact check me on this.
MRG

[RAE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nerkdawg Hi all I have visited the site in the past, but never posted. I just retired on 1 April 2014 after 33 years with the federal government at age 55. My wife, a teacher, will be retiring at the end of the school year. We are lucky to have a good pension (my CSRS and wife's smaller STRS). We have the majority of our funds in the TSP and a 457 plan. We have no debts (a small mortgage with enough funds in taxable accounts to pay off, just waiting until pension checks are final to be sure of cash flow). I am planning to roll a portion of my TSP (probably a little over $100K) to an IRA and then gradually convert it to a Roth IRA. I plan to use ETrade and no transaction fee mutual funds (that is where my taxable accounts are). Anyone else use ETrade for there IRAs? Looking forward to enjoying retirement!

Hi Nerk - I'm also a retired Fed, CSRS.........retired in 2010 at age 54.5, with almost 32 years of service. Retirement has been great for me so far........I'm sure you will enjoy it too. I also had some $$ in the TSP when I retired, but I decided to just leave it there, primarily due to the TSP's low expenses (lower than even Vanguard). I set up a small monthly withdrawal with TSP the year following my retirement, and that is direct-deposited into my checking account each month with no problems. It did take several months for OPM to start sending my full monthly annuity amount, but of course you get the interim amount monthly until then, which is adequate.

Best of luck to you..........keep us posted on how you are enjoying retired life.

[nerkdawg]

Seraphim- ETrade offers about 1300 funds with no loads or transaction fees/commissions. They charge an Early Redemption Fee on funds held less than 90 days. Not sure how they make $ if you don't redeem early??

RAE- thanks for the feedback - CSRS pension is hard to beat. I will be leaving the majority of my $ in the TSP. What I am rolling over to TIRA and then converting to Roth is to hopefully lessen RMDs in the future. Hopefully, we won't need those funds and they will eventually go to our kids (just not too soon)

[Sirka]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nerkdawg Anyone else use ETrade for there IRAs?

I have my IRAs at ETrade, but moved DW's IRAs to TD Ameritrade several years ago for diversification. Trading at Etrade is easy - including NTF funds. Etrade bank CDs were nice to have back in a day of 7% IR. Now I have no reason to stay.
Vanguard holds most of our MFs. In the end, when Vanguard improves their Brokerage trading, I will move from ETrade.

[walkinwood]

Welcome!

Is that Newark NJ?

[nerkdawg]

Walkinwood - Newark, Ohio about 30 miles East of Columbus