Hello. I just recently started travel nursing and completed my first assignment. I have a 403b from my old employer and a 401k through the travel nursing agency I just completed the assignment with. If I continue to do travel nursing,(more than likely I will and have to use multiple agencies to keep steady work) how can I avoid having multiple plans through multiple companies? Is there any way I can combine them all into one? Or is this even a good idea?

In general I believe it is a good idea to combine plans into a rolloer IRA. In general you can set up an IRA with better investment choices and lower costs than either the 401(K) or 403(b), and by combining accounts it makes it easier to keep track of your retirement assets. You want to perform a direct rollover of the funds from your old 403(b) into a rollover IRA. Then you can do the same with the 401(k) - a direct rollover to that new account. This way all your retirement assets end up in one account. You can set up the rollover IRA on-line at firms such as Fidelity, Vanguard, T Rowe Price, Schwab, etc - they all offer excellent low-cost IRA investments, and will hande all the roll-over paperwork for you.

Just two pieces of advice:

1. Do NOT take a distribution from either retirement plan, but rather do direct rollovers to avoid any tax complications or the risk of having to pay an early withdrawal penalty.

2. Many 403(b) and 401(k) plans require minimum investment amounts for ex-employees - often $5K. If either account is less than that the administrators may automatically make a distribution to you after 60 days or so of being off-roll. You do not want that to happen - so if either account is less than the minimum it's important to get the rollover IRA established soon so that the direct rollover can be completed before they distribute the account assets to you.

I haven't been able to figure out how to avoid having multiple different accounts with small amounts of money in each and this sounds perfect. Thanks so much for taking the time to help. It is greatly appreciated.