401kTransition

What have you saved across all your jobs?

Add each retirement account you have, including old 401(k)s from past jobs. You’ll see your total, how much sits at old employers, and what yearly fees could add up to by retirement. Nothing you type here leaves your device.

Inflation figure from the Federal Reserve, retirement age from the Social Security Administration · Last reviewed

Read this first

Everything here is a hypothetical example. It is not a prediction or a promise. The results change with the numbers you enter, and they would change again over time. Growth is not guaranteed, and accounts can lose value. This page shows no investments or products and names no advisor.

Your accounts

Example numbers are filled in. Change them to yours. The yearly fee is the share of the balance the account charges each year, such as 1% (that’s $100 a year on $10,000). Your plan or account provider can tell you. Leave it blank if you don’t know.

Account 1

$
%

Account 2

$
%

67 is the Social Security full retirement age for people born in 1960 or later. Use your own.

What you put in each month. Count an employer match only if you want it included. We keep it the same every year.

$

An example rate, not a forecast. Nobody knows what your accounts will earn, and they can lose value.

Where you are today

Total saved today

$105,000

Across 2 accounts.

At old employers

$45,000

1 old 401(k), 43% of your total. Each one has its own login, statements and fees to keep up with.

A hypothetical look at retirement

At age 67, 22 years from now, your accounts could be worth about

$264,665

That’s about $171,196 in today’s dollars, using inflation of 2% a year.

Hypothetical. It assumes 5% growth a year before fees, an example rate. Real results will differ and could be lower.

What fees could cost

If each fee below were 0.5 percentage points lower, you’d have about $29,365 more at age 67, or about $18,994 in today’s dollars. A fee already under 0.5% is compared with 0%.

  • Account 1: Old 401(k) from a past job

    Yearly fee
    1%
    At age 67
    $106,646
    Extra with a lower fee
    $11,868

  • Account 2: Current employer plan

    Yearly fee
    0.5%
    At age 67
    $158,019
    Extra with a lower fee
    $17,497

A lower fee isn’t always on offer, and the lowest fee isn’t always the best fit. Investments, services and protections differ from one account to the next.

How this estimate works, and what it leaves out

  • Each account grows once a year at the growth rate you pick, minus its yearly fee. With 5% growth and a 1% fee, the account grows 4% that year. Fees come out of the balance every year, so over decades the gap adds up.
  • The growth rate is an example, not a forecast. Real returns go up and down, can be negative and are not guaranteed. Accounts can lose value, and the same average rate can lead to very different results.
  • If you enter a monthly amount, we add 12 times that amount at the end of each year to the first current employer plan you list, and keep it the same every year. With no current plan listed, we count it on its own at a 0% fee.
  • Today’s dollars: we divide the projected total by 1.02 for each year, a steady 2% a year. That is the Federal Reserve’s longer-run goal for inflation. It is not a forecast, and real inflation changes from year to year.
  • The fee comparison runs each account twice: once with the fee you enter, once with a fee 0.5 percentage points lower (never below 0%). The difference is the number shown. 0.5 is an example size we picked. It is not an average and not a typical saving, and a lower-fee choice may not exist for a given account.
  • A fee left blank counts as 0%, which can make results look better than they are.
  • It leaves out taxes (including income tax when you take money out), required withdrawals, loans, one-time or per-trade charges, later changes in your plan’s fees, Social Security, pensions and any account you don’t list. It uses the balances you type and doesn’t check them.
  • Results are hypothetical. They change when you change a number, and they would change again over time as balances, fees and markets change. This is general education, not tax, legal or investment advice. It doesn’t recommend any investment, account or provider.

Sources

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