TIAA Cref (now Tiaa)

I have a very small TIAA retirement account and deciding which option and age to take, 65 or 70. My question to anyone that has TIAA. Are there any small details about taking that isn’t obvious in the retirement illustrator? or is it pretty straight forward? I have been retired for years and am delaying social security to age 70. Appreciate any thoughts. Again, it is small and not the core component of what will pay my bills, just wanted to make sure I didn’t miss something. Thanks

My TIAA retirement account was less than 2.5% of my portfolio and I did not need that income for retirement expenses. I selected the 10 year Transfer Payout Annuity rollover to my Vanguard IRA.
My process was to read about the options then caledl the TIAA representatives with specific questions as I decided on the best option for me. The final paperwork process to set up the transfer was more difficult than the simple process of transfering a 401K account to an IRA.

I will go back and take a look at the options as your choice might be a good fit for me since my account is less than 1% of my portfolio. One additional question, knowing that the final paperwork process was a bear would you still have done the 10 year transfer or just take a lifetime annuity payment to you monthly? I am wondering if all the TIAA processes are difficult or just rollover. I do appreciate your comments. It has been a big help.

The 10 year rollover to an IRA is better. An annuity payment is taxable as income. For a rollover IRA, only
the RMD portion is taxable. I was planning to do a Qualified Charitable Distribution with my annual RMD, so none of my RMD has been taxable.

What you are doing fits well with my situation and how to best use the TIAA account. Thank you so much!

Not the same, but 2022 on January 2nd we too a lump sum from an old retirement plan. Taxes were help for federal and state (ca). We used turbo tax and all was good. While doing the state we found 1 worksheet where we had in all the amounts from the distribution and not until then do the state taxes that were held back were applied, thus lowering our 1,200 state tax bill to about 600. I want to guess turbo tax handles INCOME an distributions differently.