Originally Posted by
block30
Hello all, I apologize for crashing the thread, but he's a real noob question(s); as a guardsman, is it worth getting into TSP? I have an American Funds Roth IRA since high school, and Roth 401k with small match from my civilian employer. Is there any reason to get into TSP, or should I instead just use the same amount of money to put in my American Funds IRA? Also, I notice you talk about Vanguard. What do you think of them? Vanguard has piqued my interest, but I believe their initial investment minimum is $3,000. If I were still single, no problem. But with anything now, my wife nixes just about any spending I do.
The TSP, in my opinion, is excellent. It doesn't overwhelm the novice with a huge list of choices. The expenses are extremely low. It allows you to invest in a diversified portfolio. As I've said before, I wish I had the TSP at my work. And I certainly wish my wife's crappy, expense laden plan was a TSP.
I would NOT invest any more money with American Funds, ESPECIALLY if they are charging you a 5.5% front end load. The only good thing I can say about American (in my opinion) is that for an actively managed company, their big funds have done pretty OK. If you have to invest in an actively managed fund family, you could have certainly done worse.
If it were my money, I would do what is called a "trustee to trustee" transfer and roll whatever money you have with American and put it into a similar Vanguard index fund, which will have much lower costs and will likely outperform its actively managed peers anyway......and no lame a$$ loads!!! If you do a "trustee to trustee" transfer, it will be a non-taxable event if done correctly. I believe the trustee to trustee transfer my get you around their minimum account balances but not sure.
Tell you wife you're not "spending." You're investing. Big difference.