I was a bit miffed to learn that the max contribution for an IRA and Roth IRA combined is only $5,500. I did some reading and understand the point of it but I would much prefer to be in control of my own money and where it is invested than some of the limited options given through an employer's 401k.
When you change jobs, you can rollover your 401(k) into an IRA, so if you're in an industry where change jobs every 3-5 years, the extra savings makes the difference pretty small (you can always put your money into a low-fee index fund in the 401(k) and then manage it more when you rollover).
Further, a lot of 401(k)s at larger companies that use Fidelity (at least, possibly others) have a feature where you can allocate money into a general brokerage sub-account, where you can invest in anything you could if you opened an IRA at Fidelity.
Yes, that's what I did after leaving my last job and read up more on IRAs. For retirement savings, the plan is for index funds. I was more annoyed by the max on IRAs since a lot of the companies I've worked for have either not offered 401ks or just had poor options.
This Bogleheads post had some good replies about why this is the way it is in terms of contribution max:
Plus you cannot contribute at all to an IRA once your income is above a number (132,000? last year) that is way below valley software average salary. It's kind of a way to encourage one to work for a company that has a 401K I guess.
