[USER]

It looks like I might get about $725k transferred from spouse 401k next year from divorce in a QDRO.

I will stay in house for time being until kids graduate hs.

My income will be low, under $40k per year but I’d still like to contribute from pay check.

How do I best invest this 401k $ to get max benefit the next 10 years. I’m 53.

[Adam]

You wouldn’t be contributing to that 401k, so it would depend on if you have your own company retirement plan to contribute to.

Another option would be a Roth IRA, but there’s a lot of considerations there.

Do you have a budget worked out to know if your living expenses are covered?

Are you going to be required to refinance the home mortgage to get his name off the loan (unless it’s free and clear)?

Do you have other short term financial needs where adding a lot to a retirement account could cause you problems in the near future not having enough money?

Your situation is not going to be simple enough to just get random advice from Facebook and have it personalized to you.

As far as the 401k, a 10yr time horizon is pretty long so depending on your risk tolerance, you could be looking at low cost index funds (i.e. US total stock market, S&P500 index, etc).

Look at the expense ratios of the funds you have invested and anything above 0.1% is probably not an index fund.

[Tony]

Make sure they do NOT cut you a check! No distributions! If you don’t have an IRA now, you can open one without a balance.

Then roll over the entire amount from exes 401k.

With 10 years to go before you start withdrawing money, I would simply go 100% S&P 500.

If that makes you nervous, you could do 10-20% bonds.

I like vanguard, but many also love Fidelity. Just also do NOT buy VTSAX if you have a Fidelity account.

[Kaj]

Since you are with Fidelity I’d say FZROX.
As you get closer to retirement you’ll want upto 25% of your total portfolio in fixed income like bonds of CDs.

[Jodi]

Both Fidelity and Vanguard have low cost/high quality fiduciary advising services as low as.

3% of assets under management (that’s POINT 3), might be worth considering even if it’s just to help you set up a plan— or find a fee only planner that can create a plan that takes into consideration all of your “moving parts”

[Author]

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