Expert Advice

What If I Have Multiple Retirement Accounts?

Mitch Tuchman, Managing Director of Rebalance, on consolidating multiple retirement accounts.

Mitch Tuchman: A typical client will come to us and we’ll begin asking them what accounts they have and inevitably, because our target client is over 45 years old they’ve got a lot of accounts. They had old jobs, there’s a 401(k) over here and maybe they bought a variable annuity at one point in their life over there and usually each of these various investment accounts are being managed in different ways with different funds and we call it a yard sale. Our job is to help the client get in control and put all the accounts together, make it holistically look like one big account so that we and the client can understand how to manage this money and get in control.

A lot of the work that we will do is consolidating accounts. This account consolidation is a big part of the service that we provide for our clients and clients tell me all the time, after that’s all done, they feel much more relaxed and have peace of mind, knowing that all the money is put in place. They’re not getting all these statements in the mail or tracking all kinds of things for their book keeper or accountant, and when the money is all in one place, the one number you’re looking at, when you look at your statement or log online is a much bigger number. You pay a lot more attention to it and it’s a much better way to operate.