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."
"would it make sense to set up multiple bank accounts to avoid going above their thresholds?  Quite possiblly yes but you need to pay attention to the fine print. I don't know what the situation is in poland but in the UK accounts that pay high interest often have strings attached. For example the santander 123 current account pays very good interest but it has an account fee and some other requirements that are difficult to meet if you are not using it as your ""main current account"".  You need to read the terms carefully, if you go over the threshold does the lower rate only apply to money over the threshold? or does it apply to all the money in the account? Are there any other restrictions on how you use the account. Also I don't know if poland has any provisions for limited tax-advantaged savings (like the ISA scheme we have in the UK). If it does then that can add further complications. How to calculate how to maximize the profit here? Well in theory you would get the best account you can and fill it to the threshold. Then the next best account and so-on. You would move any interest paid in an account that was already full to the threshold to the best non-full account (or if the account strongly peanalises going over perhaps move an ammount of money equivilent to the interest just before the interest is paid). In practice that is a lot of work, so if the rates on the different accounts are similar you may want to leave some margin for interest or (in the case of an account that pays the lower rate on the overage while still paying the higher rate on money below the threshold) accepting that some of your money will earn slightly less than idea. Another option some accounts may offer is just to pay the interest to another account, avoiding the need to move it yourself. Finally you should check out your government's limits for compensation in the event of banks going bust. As a general rule you don't want to put more than that ammount in a single bank even if doing so would get you the best interest." The check is from your credit card company.  Whose ever the money is, it is certainly not the credit card company's, and they know that.  This is why they cut the check to you.  You should definitely cash the check (or deposit it into your bank account).   You've tried to contact the mattress store multiple times, and they aren't responding.  At some point, you've got to say that you've done everything that you could to do the right thing.   Now, keep in mind that at some point in the future, the mattress store may come back to you and ask for the money back.  If I were you, I would not spend this money for quite some time.  Put it away in a savings account (maybe add it to your emergency fund).  Then if they come back in the future looking for money, you can easily write them a check.  You probably also want to keep some documentation on what you've done already to try to give the money back to them, just in case for some reason they try to claim that you owe them some interest or something like that. Regardless of UK Money Laundering Laws - All companies have a responsibility under the Data Protection Act to ensure that all data kept is necessary and accurate - and so they can actually ask you to send up-to-date information* in any time period that they deem reasonable to ensure they are compliant with the act. That being said, most payment systems these days are automated and use algorithms to try and find suspicious activity. Using multiple accounts will definitely be a red flag here, unfortunately, the advice to use your previous account will just be seen as yet another account switch by these algorithms and will probably look even more suspicious. The main thing to remember is that ultimately these acts and regulations are there to protect you and your investment, so unless you have any suspicious that you're being asked for documents by a company or individual that you don't trust I would simply send them on and let them do their job. As a side note - make sure you send anything of that nature in a recorded delivery so that you know exactly who handled it and when! * So long as the information is necessary. Much of this is incorrect. Aetna owns Payflex for starters, and it's your EMPLOYER who decides which banks and brokers to offer, not Payflex. An HSA is a checking account with an investment account option after a minimum balance is met. A majority of U.S. employers only OFFER an HSA option but don't contribute a penny, so you're lucky you get anything.  The easy solution is just keep the money that is sent to your HSA checking account in your checking account, and once a year roll it over into a different bank's HSA. The vast majority of banks offer HSAs that have no ties to a particular broker (i.e. Citibank, PNC, Chase). I have all my HSA funds in HSA Bank which is online but services lots of employers. Not true that most payroll deductions or employer contributions go to a single HSA custodian (bank).  They might offer a single bank that either contracts with an investment provider or lets you invest anywhere. But most employers making contributions are large or mid-market employers offering multiple banks, and that trend is growing fast because of defined contribution, private exchanges and vendor product redesigns. Basically, nobody likes having a second bank account for their HSA when their home bank offers one. "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.""" You could make an entry for the disputed charge as if you were going to lose the dispute, and a second entry that reverses the charge as if you were going to win the dispute.  You could then reconcile the account by including the first charge in the reconciliation and excluding the reversal until the issue has been resolved. "Ah, shit... sorry to hear all that... been there, done that.  The number of idiots in middle and upper management never ceases to amaze me.  Nor does the extent of the fiascoes and messes they manage to create, or the amount of money they manage to piss away in the process. (I've cleaned up more than my share, typically on a shoestring {and without all that much reward} -- alas, it's become somewhat of a ""special skill"" -- the downside of which is that once I get the mess all cleaned up and everything working like a clock... I get bored out of my mind).  So you have my sympathies.  Best wishes in finding a new work-home. (And keep running a tight personal-financial ship, it not only allows you to be a bit more confident in life {knowing you don't have to fear some individual or corporate jackasses' self-destruction}, but eventually it allows you to say ""F U"" to the whole mess.)  Cheers!" This is all somewhat true. The likely scenario was that those transactions were flagged in the banks suspicious activity monitoring system for potential layering activity and they may have filed a suspicious activity report with FinCEN and may have a policy to close accounts with suspicious activity.