Should I move all my retirement accounts to Fidelity?

[2cheap2eat]

I consolidated to FidelIty from Vanguard & TDA. Fees & fund offerings are about the same. I prefer TDA app & website over Fidelity’s but not a show stopper.

I also meet quarterly with CFP. It’s been very good, no fees or pressure, just as much advice & guidance as your asking for.

 

[Smilinggirl]

While my balances are much more modest than probably nearly everyone here, I'll admit I've thought about transferring everything from Vanguard to Fidelity for quite a while now. The Vanguard site used to make more sense to me and I used to be able to call someone to ask for help with transferring or setting up accounts if I needed, but over the past year or two I've found that's not as easy as it used to be. I also let someone convince me to listen to a rep try to tell me why I should use one of their people to help guide me. Keeping in mind that I know a small fraction of what many of you know about finances (sometimes I read your posts and feel like it's another language), I was shocked that I knew more than the poor person I was talking with. Is there any reason at this point to stay with Vanguard rather than Fidelity given that I only have a tIRA, a Roth IRA (and plan to start doing conversions in the next few years) and a taxable account? I seem to remember that the Fidelity site was fairly easy to use and understand. I have only done target date funds since they're the most simple and straight forward, but I like graphs and charts that show me what my money is doing at a quick glance.

 

[2cheap2eat]

While my balances are much more modest than probably nearly everyone here, I'll admit I've thought about transferring everything from Vanguard to Fidelity for quite a while now. The Vanguard site used to make more sense to me and I used to be able to call someone to ask for help with transferring or setting up accounts if I needed, but over the past year or two I've found that's not as easy as it used to be. I also let someone convince me to listen to a rep try to tell me why I should use one of their people to help guide me. Keeping in mind that I know a small fraction of what many of you know about finances (sometimes I read your posts and feel like it's another language), I was shocked that I knew more than the poor person I was talking with. Is there any reason at this point to stay with Vanguard rather than Fidelity given that I only have a tIRA, a Roth IRA (and plan to start doing conversions in the next few years) and a taxable account? I seem to remember that the Fidelity site was fairly easy to use and understand. I have only done target date funds since they're the most simple and straight forward, but I like graphs and charts that show me what my money is doing at a quick glance.

Don’t worry about your current balances, everyone here was starting out too! I’d suggest you try Fidelity by opening an account. You can transfer in funds later. Worst case, you can always transfer back to Vanguard without triggering a taxable event.

 

[scrabbler1]

While we didn't do it right away, after my friend received a large inheritance back in 2012, we eventually consolidated all of his non-Fidelity holdings into Fidelity. One of these non-Fido holdings was a Roth IRA. Having had some experience helping him with other electronic asset transfers, it wasn't too hard to do these moves, including the Roth IRA.

One advantage of consolidating his holdings was it made it a lot easier for us to make his annual Roth IRA purchase. We were using cash generated by his brokerage account to make the Roth IRA purchase, so having both accounts under one roof made this easy instead of cumbersome like before (having to move money to his bank account then to his Roth IRA).

Viewing his accounts became easier, too, with everything under Fido. And now that I am an authorized user for him, I can view his accounts and mine at the same time.

 

[gt5059b]

Would you do it?

I moved all my accounts (excluding work 401k/hsa) to Fidelity many years ago and couldn't be happier. This includes checking/billpay/atm, savings, IRA (both roth and trad/rollover), taxable accounts, HSA. The Fidelity 2% cash back credit card is my main card. Fyi, there is a 70 page thread over on Bogleheads about Fidelity being a "one stop shop" for financial services if you want to read more.

Even though I use Fidelity, 90% of my investments there are Vanguard ETFs. So I'm still getting the main benefit of Vanguard investment products.

Fyi, now that interest rates are non trivial. One of the nice things about Fidelity, is that they treat Fidelity money market funds as cash. No need to sell ahead of time to cover a debit (atm, billpay, ach, buying stocks etc). Fidelity will automatically liquidate enough of the mmf to cover the debit. This is nice as I can keep spare cash in a mmf that is paying higher interest. As far as I know, no other brokerage does this and would require you to first sell the money market fund to use it for something.

When I retire, I might split my assets between Fidelity and Schwab just to have some diversification. From what I've read and seen, Schwab is the only other place on par with Fidelity as a one stop shop.

 

[Surewhitey]

Late to the party... I need to consolidate all my accounts too. I have a feeling I'll have both VG and FIDO in the end. More about the bank accounts.

I'm more impressed with FIDO's website, VG is good enough to not worry about it though. Just opened up a bank account too and would like to consolidate my other accounts to it. It's the little things they do, for me.

 

[stephenson]

There is no comparison between Vanguard and Fidelity ... I retained my Vanguard funds, but Fidelity holds them.

I have a no fee advisor for big picture stuff with online appointment scheduling and he has an assistant that is a great problem solver! An email to either gets action on transfers, advice, buy/sell cars and boats, etc.

And, when you call Fidelity's phone number you get very smart, quick assistance. Exec Services even more so.

 

[DrBrisket]

We have essentially consolidated everything at Fidelity. Have been this way since ~2008. Have dabbled with other brokers by opening a small account as recently as 2022, but Fidelity is the best overall.

I do keep a local credit union account for a day-to-day checking account. The Fidelity Cash Management Account would make Fido a complete one-stop-shop for us if we lived near a Fido Office. After a few issues with Fido Mobile Check deposits, I have marked mobile check deposits as something Fido simply does not and will not ever get right. We used to live near a Fido Center and never had an issue; now we are 2+hours away. When mobile check deposits work, it's great. However, on the handful of times a check has been (incorrectly) flagged as bad (seems to happen about once a year as some dufus intern fat-fingers an entry), there is no way to resolve the issue without getting the check reissued.

 

[Bflotomny]

Like Smilinggirl I also have modest balances. I moved the bulk of my funds to Fido last year. I held onto Wellesley at VG. I recently took my RMD for the VG account, a few weeks later I needed information from the VG account.
I attempted to log-in but was blocked. I called VG and was told that Wellesley has a frequent trading policy which locked my account until Mid Feb. I explain that I only needed information and did not intend to process any orders. The VG rep repeated the frequent trading policy. I then informed the rep that she needed to get someone on the phone because I intend to close the account TODAY frequent trading policy or not. I was able to get the issue squared away eventually
As so many have expressed the Vanguard of today is NOT the VG I began with almost 20 years ago. The inmates are running the show. If this how they run the back office I don’t intend to find out what is happening in the front of the house. I closed the account and moved to Fido.

 

[EQMAN]

Like Smilinggirl I also have modest balances. I moved the bulk of my funds to Fido last year. I held onto Wellesley at VG. I recently took my RMD for the VG account, a few weeks later I needed information from the VG account.

I attempted to log-in but was blocked. I called VG and was told that Wellesley has a frequent trading policy which locked my account until Mid Feb. I explain that I only needed information and did not intend to process any orders. The VG rep repeated the frequent trading policy. I then informed the rep that she needed to get someone on the phone because I intend to close the account TODAY frequent trading policy or not. I was able to get the issue squared away eventually

As so many have expressed the Vanguard of today is NOT the VG I began with almost 20 years ago. The inmates are running the show. If this how they run the back office I don’t intend to find out what is happening in the front of the house. I closed the account and moved to Fido.

+1

 

[RobLJ]

I'm also consolidating my wife's Vanguard IRA into her Fidelity IRA (my 403bs are with Fidelity), mostly to simplify for her in the event I croak.
There is still a small E-trade IRA which I may eventually move and a Schwab taxable that we use to store withdrawal money that we don't spend since we're withdrawing yearly to the top of the 12% taxable area and don't spend it all. The Schwab account acts as an emergency or BTD bucket. Edit: I also plan to purchase the Vanguard ETF equivalent in Fidelity for several of the Vanguard funds.

 

[big-papa]

Been with Fidelity forever and have been consolidating everything there over the last several years.
- My wife and I each have our IRAs there which were funded by 401K rollovers from our previous employers
- We have our taxable brokerage account there, too.
- Had a taxable account at Vanguard but closed it as part of a tax loss harvesting a few years ago and moved the money to the Fidelity taxable account.
- Same as above for a Schwab account we once held.
- I have an HSA I opened there and I do a custodian to custodian transfer from the corporate sponsored HSA at HealthEquity to Fidelity about every 3 paychecks. I retire in April at which point I'll transfer the remainder and completely close the HealthEquity account.
- My 401K is at Vanguard and I use the brokerage option at TD Ameritrade for 99% of my 401K holdings. I'll have a true-up in June of this year and a final one in June of 2024 for corporate matching. So probably won't move any of that over to my Fidelity IRA till the True-ups are done, but haven't 100% decided that yet.
- Checking account, along with our credit card, is at our Credit Union.

Nothing but good things for me at Fidelity and the fact that they have 2 brick and mortars here in Austin is convenient, though rarely needed. I have somebody assigned to me at Fidelity due to the value of my portfolio, but I'm a heavy DIY'er so I never meet with the individual, and pretty much ignore their calls or emails requesting a sit-down.

Oh and other than the settlement funds, none of our holdings are funds provided by Fidelity. All ETFs from iShares and Schwab. No commissions and can purchase fractional shares.
I'm sure they love customers like us.

Cheers,
Big-Papa

 

[PointBreeze]

I moved all my accounts (excluding work 401k/hsa) to Fidelity many years ago and couldn't be happier. This includes checking/billpay/atm, savings, IRA (both roth and trad/rollover), taxable accounts, HSA. The Fidelity 2% cash back credit card is my main card. Fyi, there is a 70 page thread over on Bogleheads about Fidelity being a "one stop shop" for financial services if you want to read more.

Even though I use Fidelity, 90% of my investments there are Vanguard ETFs. So I'm still getting the main benefit of Vanguard investment products.

Fyi, now that interest rates are non trivial. One of the nice things about Fidelity, is that they treat Fidelity money market funds as cash. No need to sell ahead of time to cover a debit (atm, billpay, ach, buying stocks etc). Fidelity will automatically liquidate enough of the mmf to cover the debit. This is nice as I can keep spare cash in a mmf that is paying higher interest. As far as I know, no other brokerage does this and would require you to first sell the money market fund to use it for something.

+1

We have just about everything at Fidelity and are very pleased. Two exceptions:

1. We each have a very small savings account at a local bricks & mortar bank for two reasons:
   • Local bank presence suggested as a good idea by many on this forum;
   • We have PayPal and Venmo connected to these accounts to insulate our portfolio from those apps (abundance of caution)
2. I am 15 years younger than DP and I have a second tIRA and Roth at Vanguard. These are my very long term bucket, invested in set-and-forget funds. Having them at Vanguard reinforces my "don’t tinker" dictum to myself about these funds

 

[Vacation4us]

OP here, thanks all for the input. I have an appointment scheduled at my local fidelity branch on 2/7/23. I have already asked for a transfer bonus so we shall see the offer when both DH and I go in. I’m pretty sure I will tranfer all funds to Fido. DH may transfer his cash approximately 250k. Depending on if they scratch his back too.

All our retirement funds are separate and solely owned. He won’t be moving his 401k/457 due to special rules on immediate access as retired law enforcement. I left Kaiser in 2017, so no rule of 55 for me. Minimum age for withdrawal 59.5. I am 56 now. We don’t need my money so I am not sure of my long term plan to access. May wait for RMD or suck out $150k at the earliest opportunity to update my home.

Hopefully I am not meeting with a snake oil salesman, I was pretty clear on my expectations so let’s hope things go well.

 

[SunGuy]

Yes, Fidelity is the best place to be, even if I wasn't working there I would still recommend them, where I have had my personal funds for over 10 years.