Multiple accounts stagnant after quitting job.
Adapted from an answer to a somewhat different question. Generally, 401k plans have larger annual expenses and provide for poorer investment choices than are available to you if you roll over your 401k investments into an IRA. So, unless you have specific reasons for wanting to continue to leave your money in the 401k plan (e.g. you have access to investments that are not available to nonparticipants and you think those investments are where you want your money to be), roll over your 401k assets into an IRA. But I don't think that is the case here.  If you had a Traditional 401k, the assets will roll over into a Traditional IRA; if it was a Roth 401k, into a Roth IRA. If you had started a little earlier, you could have considered considered converting part or all of your Traditional IRA into a Roth IRA (assuming that your 2012 taxable income will be smaller this year because you have quit your job). Of course, this may still hold true in 2013 as well.  As to which custodian to choose for your Rollover IRA, I recommend investing in a low-cost index  mutual fund such as VFINX which tracks the S&P 500 Index. Then, do not look at how that fund is doing for the next thirty years.  This will save you from the common error made by many investors when they pull out at the first downturn and thus end up buying high and selling low. Also, do not chase after exchange-traded mutual funds or ETFs (as many will likely recommend) until you have acquired more savvy or interest in investing than you are currently exhibiting. Not knowing which company stock you have, it is hard to make a recommendation about selling or holding on. But since you are glad to have quit your job, you might want to consider making a clean break and selling the shares that you own in your ex-employer's company. Keep the $35K (less the $12K that you will use to pay off the student loan) as your emergency fund. Pay off your student loan right away since you have the cash to do it. What is my best bet with the 401K? I know very little about retirement plans and don't plan to ever touch this money until I retire but could this money be of better use somewhere else?  You can roll over a 401k into an IRA. This lets you invest in other funds and stocks that were not available with your 401k plan. Fidelity and Vanguard are 2 huge companies that offer a number of investment opportunities. When I left an employer that had the 401k plan with Fidelity, I was able to rollover the investments and leave them in the existing mutual funds (several of the funds have been closed to new investors for years). Usually, when leaving an employer, I have the funds transferred directly to the place my IRA is at - this avoids tax penalties and potential pitfalls.   The student loans.... pay them off in one shot?  If the interest is higher than you could earn in a savings account, then it is smarter to pay them off at once. My student loans are 1.8%, so I can earn more money in my mutual funds. I'm suspicious and think something hinky is going to happen with the fiscal cliff negotiations, so I'm going to be paying off my student loans in early 2013.  Disclaimer: I have IRA accounts with both Fidelity and Vanguard. My current 401k plan is with Vanguard. "What is my best bet with the 401K? I know very little about retirement   plans and don't plan to ever touch this money until I retire but could   this money be of better use somewhere else? If you don't know your options, I would suggest reading some material on it that might be a little more extensive than an answer here (for instance, http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/ has some good and free information about a myriad of financial topics).  With retirement accounts you can roll it over or leave it in the current account.  Things to look at would be costs of the accounts, options you have in each account, and the flexibility of moving it if you need to.  Depending on what type of retirement account it is (Roth 401K, Traditional 401K, etc, you may have some advantages with moving it to another type). The student loans.... pay them off in one shot? I have the extra money   and it would not be a hardship to do so unless that money can be best   used somewhere else? Unless I was making more money in a savings/investing/business opportunity, I would pay off the student loans in a lump sum.  The reason is basic opportunity cost (economics) - if a better opportunity isn't on the horizon with your money, kill the interest you're paying because it's money you're losing every month. With the money just sitting in the bank I get a little sick feeling   thinking that I can be doing something better with that. Outside of general savings you could look at investing in stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, currencies, lending club loans (vary by state), or something similar.  Or you could try to start a business or invest in a start up directly (though, depending on the start up, they may not accept small investors).  Otherwise, if you don't have a specific idea at this time, it's best to have money in savings while you ponder where else it would serve you. Keep in mind, having cash on hand, even if it's not earning anything, can bail you out in emergencies or open the door if an opportunity arises.  So, you're really not ""losing"" anything by having it in cash if you're patiently waiting on opportunities." "You ask multiple question here.  The 401(k) - move it to an IRA. As others stated,this will lower your costs, and open up a potential I didn't see mentioned, the conversion to a Roth IRA. A year in which your income is lower than average is a great opportunity to convert a bit of the IRA enough to ""top off"" the lower bracket in which you may find yourself.  The company stock? If you never worked for the company would you have bought this stock? Would you buy it now? If not, why keep it?  The loan is the toughest decision. Will you sleep better if it were paid in full? What's the rate? 6% or more, I'd pay it off, under 4%, less likely. I'd invest much of the cash and the $8000 in stock in a Dilip-recommended VFINX, and use the dividends to pay the loan each month."
Bank of America is the worst. Once I had a joint account with another individual that I had funded out of my account to make payroll.   When I found out that he had screwed two other people by stealing the payroll money I decided to disburse it myself and transferred it back to my corporate account on which I was the only signer.  He went back to the bank and effected a withdrawal from my account to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, put the money in the joint account and removed me as a signer.   The bank wouldn't give me my money back and I never collected from him.  Another time I tried to close my sons' accounts which were in inactive status.  Every day for a week they told me they could not close the account until it was active, but they were working on making it active.  Chase could do this in a minute.  I finally went to a branch and loudly informed the manager that maybe the bank was insolvent and that I should call the FDIC to see why they won't release my money.  He wanted to take me into his office.  I told him loudly, I know all about DDAs, Savings and CDs, I have run deposit operations for a major bank and wrote software to process them.  Just put a hold on the account, write me two cashiers check and offset them with a suspense voucher.  You do know how to write a suspense voucher don't you? It's just a general ledger entry to a suspense account.  Well he was so embarassed he would do anything to get me out of the branch and gave me the cashier's checks.  Fuck B of A. "I'm no accounting expert, but I've never heard of anyone using a separate account to track outstanding checks.  Instead, the software I use (GnuCash) uses a ""reconciled"" flag on each transaction.  This has 3 states:  n: new transaction (the bank doesn't know about it yet), c: cleared transaction (the bank deducted the money), and y: reconciled transaction (the transaction has appeared on a bank statement). The account status line includes a Cleared balance (which should be how much is in your bank account right now), a Reconciled balance (which is how much your last bank statement said you had), and a Present balance (which is how much you'll have after your outstanding checks clear). I believe most accounting packages have a similar feature." This discussion indicates that the accounts are not reported to credit agencies, but the post is also over a year old, and who knows how reliable the information is (it's fairly well-traveled, though).  It's based on one person calling up Trans Union and E-Trade and asking people directly. "I assume you get your information from somewhere where they don't report the truth. I'm sorry if mentioning Fox News offended you, it was not my intention. But the way the question is phrased suggests that you know nothing about what ""pension"" means. So let me explain. 403(b) is not a pension account. Pension account is generally a ""defined benefit"" account, whereas 403(b)/401(k) and similar - are ""defined contribution"" accounts. The difference is significant: for pensions, the employer committed on certain amount to be paid out at retirement (the defined benefit) regardless of how much the employee/employer contributed or how well the account performed. This makes such an arrangement a liability. An obligation to pay. In other words - debt. Defined contribution on the other hand doesn't create such a liability, since the employer is only committed for the match, which is paid currently. What happens to your account after the employer deposited the defined contribution (the match) - is your problem. You manage it to the best of your abilities and whatever you have there when you retire - is yours, the employer doesn't owe you anything. Here's the problem with pensions: many employers promised the defined benefit, but didn't do anything about actually having money to pay. As mentioned, such a pension is essentially a debt, and the retiree is a debt holder. What happens when employer cannot pay its debts? Employer goes bankrupt. And when bankrupt - debtors are paid only part of what they were owed, and that includes the retirees. There's no-one raiding pensions. No-one goes to the bank with a gun and demands ""give me the pension money"". What happened was that the employers just didn't fund the pensions. They promised to pay - but didn't set aside any money, or set aside not enough. Instead, they spent it on something else, and when the time came that the retirees wanted their money - they didn't have any. That's what happened in Detroit, and in many other places. 403(b) is in fact the solution to this problem. Instead of defined benefit - the employers commit on defined contribution, and after that - it's your problem, not theirs, to have enough when you're retired." Your last sentence is key. If you have multiple accounts, it's too easy to lose track over the years. I've seen too many people pass on and the spouse has a tough time tracking the accounts, often finding a prior spouse listed as beneficiary.  In this case, your gut is right, simpler is better. I have a car loan paid in full and even paid off early, and 2 personal loans paid in full from my credit union that don't seem to reflect in a positive way and all 3 were in good standing. But you also  My credit card utilization is 95%. I have a total of 4 store credit cards, a car loan, 2 personal loans. So assuming no overlap, you've paid off three of your ten loans (30%).  And you still have 95% utilization.   What would you do if you were laid off for six months?  Regardless of payment history, you would most likely stop making payments on your loans.  This is why your credit score is bad.  You are in fact a credit risk.  Not due to payment history.  If your payment history was bad, you'd likely rank worse.  But simple fiscal reality is that you are an adverse event away from serious fiscal problems.   For that matter, the very point that you are considering bankruptcy says that they are right to give you a poor score.  Bankruptcy has adverse effects on you, but for your creditors it means that many of them will never get paid or get paid less than what they loaned.   The hard advice that we can give is to reduce your expenses.  Stop going to restaurants.  Prepare breakfast and supper from scratch and bag your lunch.  Don't put new expenses on your credit cards unless you can pay them this month.  Cut up your store cards and don't shop for anything but necessities.  Whatever durables (furniture, appliances, clothes, shoes, etc.) you have now should be enough for the next year or so.   Cut your expenses.  Have premium channels on your cable or the extra fast internet?  Drop back to the minimum instead.  Turn the heat down and the A/C temperature up (so it cools less).  Turn off the lights if you aren't using them.  If you move, move to a cheaper apartment.  Nothing to do?  Get a second job.  That will not only keep you from being bored, it will help with your financial issues.   Bankruptcy will not itself fix the problems you describe.  You are living beyond your means.  Bankruptcy might make you stop living beyond your means.  But it won't fix the problem that you make less money than you want to spend.  Only you can do that.  Better to stop the spending now rather than waiting until bankruptcy makes your credit even worse and forces you to cut spending.   If you have extra money at the end of the month, pick the worst loan and pay as much of it as you can.  By worst, I mean the one with the worst terms going forward.  Highest interest rate, etc.  If two loans have the same rate, pay the smaller one first.  Once you pay off that loan, it will increase the amount of money you have left to pay off your other loans.  This is called the debt snowball (snowball effect).   After you finish paying off your debt, save up six months worth of expenses or income.  These will be your emergency savings.   Once you have your emergency fund, write out a budget and stick to it.  You can buy anything you want, so long as it fits in your budget.  Avoid borrowing unless absolutely necessary.  Instead, save your money for bigger purchases.  With savings, you not only avoid paying interest, you may actually get paid interest.  Even if it's a low rate, paid to you is better than paying someone else.   One of the largest effects of bankruptcy is that it forces you to act like this.  They offer you even less credit at worse terms.  You won't be able to shop on credit anymore.  No new car loan.  No mortgage.  No nice clothes on credit.  So why declare bankruptcy?  Take charge of your spending now rather than waiting until you can't do anything else. "No, this is not true. All of these banks are subject to audits by one of the four largest accounting firms in the country. These firms are worth billions of dollars. They would not risk their reputation opining on the validity of financial statements of companies that are ""allowed to keep two sets of books.""" Well, you're business/accounting acumen is nothing to brag about and your character is still out for judgment, though your insistence on trying to make this point despite being wrong is sort of working against you. Other than that, I don't know anything else about you to make that kind of assessment.  Though you are tenacious, I'll give you that. You keep arguing with me despite saying you were done with this. So that could possibly be a positive character trait. It's sad.  My mother lost her job after a brutal divorce.  BOA bought up Countrywide, then when my mother pleaded for assistance BOA said they could not help her unless she was behind/in default of her mortgage.  She tried to do a deed-in-lieu with a lawyer and BOA refused to accept the deed-in-lieu many times.  Then BOA sold her mortgage to Green Tree (?) and they refused her deed-in-lieu as well.   This went on for over 2 years and they foreclosed on the house.  I told my mother to sue because they should have accepted her deed-in-lieu because it was approved by the court in her bankruptcy but she was tired of trying to save her house that she just walked away.  6 months after she left and moved in with my sister Green Tree called her offering a refinance at a lower rate and a mortgage payment that was less than a typical car payment.  Now 5 years later my mom is just going to pay cash for her house and never do a mortgage again. I quit diligently reconciling monthly statements some years before everything was online, when I realized that for years before that, every time I thought I found a mistake, it was always my own error. I was spending a fair amount of time (over the years) doing something that wasn't helping me. So I quit. That said, I do look at the statements and/or check the transactions on a regular basis (I now use email notifications of automatic deposits as the trigger, and then look over withdrawals, too) to make sure everything looks appropriate. I'm less concerned about a bank error than I am about identity or account theft. Sounds like they need to tighten the regulation around that and specify how long one can be off and tie that to further employment. In other words, you can't go off and come back to just quit, but need a specified time off, and a specified time back on the job. Beyond entry level, can't you hire contract workers for the interim? Surely the UK has temp agencies for just this sort of thing. Wow, that is filled with misinformation. What are you trying to achieve here? L1 has a 5yr limit, and requires a ton of evidence to support the fact that you were previously working in a managerial/executive function with the same parent company. In order to prove that, you need to be making a reasonably large salary too. It has to be applied for by the employing company, through a lawyer. What a load of hogwash, don't write about topics you have no knowledge of. I don't still have an account there, but ING Direct used to do that for you. They would set it so money would be freed up every 6 months but after a while you would have like 5-year ones to maximize returns. "Page 62, https://assets.pershingsquareholdings.com/media/2017/01/26223015/2016-PSH-Annual-Update-Presentation-FOR-DISTRIBUTION.pdf  Looking at Pershing Square's 13-F, Bill Ackman is gonna see his money soon  Recently I posted a friend's resume on craigslist and some brainwashed herbalife chick was spamming e-mail responses to all the people who had posted their resume, regardless of whether the position the candidate was seeking or qualifications the candidate had was relevant or not.   I told her it's a bad idea to spam using her real name and that MLMs are trash. Also, the person whose resume I posted was looking for a job in finance and that she clearly didn't read the ad. Her responses:  ""Thanks for your opinion. We are all entitled to them. Finance to me means money! I teach people how to make money! Putting their skills to work for themselves. Good luck to you in your search! You sound like you got a shining personality.""  ""PS, if you are in finance you probably know your stuff! Go ahead and check out what Carl Icahn thinks about network marketing. He's undeniably the wealthiest man in the United States of America. He knows a thing or two about Finance. He backs are company amazing. Maybe I'll be close-minded. I don't want to work with you, but you don't really know what you're talking about.""  made me lol and facepalm" "You're not focusing in the right place and neither is anyone else on this thread because this isn't about the guy owning you money... This is about you not having enough money to pay your rent.  If rent wasn't due and the utility bills weren't piling up, you wouldn't be trying to justify taking money out of someone else's account. So let's triage this. Your #1 problem isn't hunting down Dr. Deadbeat's wallet. So put a pin in that for now and get to the real deal.  Getting rent paid. Right? OK, you said he called ""regarding a business I have"".  It's great that you have your own business.  Are you also employed elsewhere?  If you are, then you really should simply go to your employer and tell them you are in financial distress.  Tell them that right now you can't cover your rent or bills and you want to know if they can help, i.e. give you an advance from your paycheck, do a withdrawal/loan from a retirement savings that's in your employee benefits package, etc...  They will HELP YOU because it's in their best interest as much as it is in yours. Foregoing that, consider these thoughts... If you were to go your grandparents telling them what you told all of us here, and ask them the same ""do you think it's ok to..."", they would say something close to ""Absolutely DO NOT touch someone else bank account EVER! It doesn't matter what information you have, how you got it, or what you think they owe you. Do NOT touch it.  There's a legal system that will help you get it from them if they truly do owe it to you.""   I guarantee you this, withdrawing funds from an account on which you are NOT an authorized signatory is both financial theft as well as identity theft. Bonus if you do it on a computer, because you'd then be facing criminal charges that go beyond your specific legal district, i.e. you'd face criminal charges on a national level. If convicted, odds are you'd be sentenced within the penal guidelines of the Netherlands 1983 Financial Penalties Act (FPA). Ergo, you would have much much much less money in the very near future, which would feel like an eternal walk through the Hell of the court system.  Ultimately, over your lifetime you would be exponentially poorer than you may think you are now.  I strongly urge you to rebrand this ""financial loss"" as ""Tuition at the School of Hard Knocks"". There's one last thing... the train jumps the tracks for me during your story... This guy called you? Right?...  (raised eyebrow) What kind of business do you ""have""?  The sense of desperation and naiveté in your urgent need for money to pay rent. The fact that you are accepting payment for services by conducting a  bank transfer specifically from your clients account directly toward your own utility bills is a big red flag. Bypassing business accounting and using revenue for personal finances isn't legitimate business practices. Plus you are doing it by using the bank information of brand new client who is a TOTAL stranger.  Now consider fact that this total stranger was so exceedingly generous to someone from whom he wanted personal services to be rendered. Those all tell me that he's doing something he wants the other person to do for him and he doesn't want anyone else to know.  The fact that he's being so benevolent like a 'sugar daddy' tells me that he feels guilty for having someone do what he's asking them to do.  Perceived financial superiority is the smoothest of smooth power tools that predators and abusers have in their bag.  For instance, an outlandish financial promise is probably the easiest way to target someone who is vulnerable; and then seduce them into being their victim.  Redirecting your focus on how much better life will be once your problem is solved by this cash rather than focusing on the fact that they're taking advantage of you.  Offering to pay rates that are dramatically excessive is a way of buying a clean conscious, because he's doing something that will ""rescue you"" from a crisis. The final nail in the coffin for me was that he left so abruptly and your implied instinct suggesting his reason was a lie.  It sounds like he got scared or ashamed of his actions and ran out.  It paints a picture that this was sex-for-money Good luck to you."