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Beneficial-Sleep8958 t1_j23tjw1 wrote

It partly depends on the fees in her current 401k. It also depends on what funds are available in her current 401k. The TSP is awesome, but one of the downsides that I’ve found is that there is no total market index fund (VTSAX) or total world market index fund (VTWAX). If your gf has either of those funds in her 401k at very low cost, I’d say keep the 401k. It’s a pain to try to approximate either of those two funds in the TSP since it only has SP500 (C fund), DJ Completion Index (S fund), and International Developed Market (I fund). Making sure that these 3 funds approximate a total market fund is not as simple or hands off as it should be, especially once you start adding bonds into the picture.

That being said, if your gf plans on using target date funds, then I’d rollover into the TSP hands down.

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gigglesworthy t1_j26uuo6 wrote

The C Fund (S&P 500) is a total market index fund. It's the benchmark, and is what most people use.

Worrying about the difference between a 3000-stock fund vs the S&P 500 is splitting hairs, which is why the latter considered good enough for most things. The expense ratio for the C Fund here is 0.043%, very low, and will be hard to beat. VTSAX that you mention here has an expense ratio of 0.04%, which is effectively the same.

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