Add $5000 to existing retirement account
You cannot contribute directly to that 401k account if you no longer work at the sponsoring company - you have to be on their payroll.  You can, however, roll the 401k over into an IRA, and contribute to the IRA. Note that in both cases, you are only allowed to contribute from earned income (which includes all the taxable income and wages you get from working or from running your own business). As long as you are employed (and have made more than $5k this year) you should have no problem. I am not certain whether contributing your $5k to a roth IRA would help you achieve your tax goals, someone else here certainly can advise.
No, the reinvestment is done as a courtesy. Consider, one can have, say, 100 shares of a $50 stock. A 2% dividend is $100/yr or $25/quarter. It would be a pretty bad deal if brokers charged you even $5 for that trade. When cap gains and dividends are grouped as you suggest, it refers to Mutual Funds. My funds will have a year end dividend and cap gain distribution. In a non-retirement account, one has to pay the tax due, and be sure to add this to your cost basis, as it's money you are effectively adding to your account. It does not mean cap gain the same as when you sell your shares of Apple for a huge gain.  Those check boxes seem to offer you a chance to put all your holding on the same reinvestment plan for div/cap gain. You should also be able to choose one by one what you'd like to do. Free Wire Transfers You get better deals on wire transfer fees from brokerage firms and mutual fund companies. Vanguard doesn’t charge a wire transfer fee if the amount of the wire is over $5,000; the fee is only $5 if the amount is between $1,000 and $5,000. Fidelity doesn’t charge a wire transfer fee if your total household balance at Fidelity is above a certain amount ($15 otherwise). Schwab gives you three free domestic wire transfers per quarter if your total household balance at Schwab is above a certain amount ($25 otherwise). Incoming wires are free at Vanguard, Fidelity, and Schwab. Business checking accounts sometimes get free wire transfers. For example you get 10 free wire transfers every month (5 incoming, 5 outgoing) with HSBC’s free no-minimum-balance Business Direct checking account. Some premium level personal checking accounts also give free wire transfers. For example if you have Premier Checking at Northwest Federal Credit Union ($50,000 minimum balance or $10 monthly fee), you get free outgoing domestic wire transfers. The Vanguard information in that article appears to be dated: they seem to allow free outgoing wire transfers without caveat even from the minimal, fee-free account. I am aware of PNC's Performance Select checking account, which allows unlimited free domestic wire transfers. The fee for this account is $25 per month, which would be around $5 per weekly transfer. Alternatively, the fee is waived if you maintain a $5000 minimum balance or $5000 direct deposit. How bad would maxing out my credit card once a year affect my score is a related discussion. You shouldn't be using 20%, but rather keep the monthly statement below 20%. If the credit lines add to $5000, charging gas and paying in full each month will help your score (obviously, I assume you don't pay more than $1000/mo for gas). Letting the balance go unpaid month to month means you are paying interest. Probably 18% or more. This is bad. "As other people have indicated, traditional IRAs are tax deductable for a particular year. Please note, though, that traditional IRAs are tax deferred (not tax-free) accounts, meaning that you'll have to pay taxes on any money you take out later regardless of why you're making the withdrawal. (A lot of people mistakenly call them tax free, which they're not). There is no such thing as a ""tax-free"" retirement account. Really, in terms of Roth vs. Traditional IRAs, it's ""pay now or pay later."" With the exception of special circumstances like this, I recommend investing exclusively in Roth IRAs for money that you expect to grow much (or that you expect to produce substantial income over time). Just to add a few thoughts on what to actually invest in once you open your IRA, I strongly agree with the advice that you invest mostly in low-cost mutual funds or index funds. The advantage of an open-ended mutual fund is that it's easier to purchase them in odd increments and you may be able to avoid at least some purchase fees, whereas with an ETF you have to buy in multiples of that day's asking price. For example, if you were investing $500 and the ETF costs $200 per share, you could only purchase 2 shares, leaving $100 uninvested (minus whatever fee your broker charged for the purchase). The advantage of an ETF is that it's easy to buy or sell quickly. Usually, when you add money to a mutual fund, it'll take a few days for it to hit your account, and when you want to sell it'll similarly take a few days for you to get your money; when I buy an ETF the transaction can occur almost instantly. The fees can also be lower (if the ETF is just a passive index fund). Also, there's a risk with open-ended mutual funds that if too many people pull money out at once the managers could be forced to sell stocks at an unfavorable price." Use a compound interest calculator to project the difference with ETFs in the S&amp;P 500 (or the asset mix of your choosing), and subtract the expected pension amount. If the difference is positive, or around around even, I would do it to avoid the risk of company failure. "Rolling an old 401k into a new 401k is generally only for ease of management. For example, how many bank accounts do you really want? As long as the funds are reasonably allocated I've found it can be a useful ""mind game"" to leave it separate. Sometimes it's desirable to ignore an account and let it grow, and it is a nice surprise when finally adding all the account balances together. In other words, I keep thinking I've got X (the amount of my biggest or current 401k), which affects/helps my habits and desire to save. When I add them all together I'm shocked to find out I've got Y (the total of all accounts). Personally, I've had big paperwork problems transferring an old 403b (same type process as 401k) even when I had an adviser helping me move it. In the end it was worth moving it, because I'm having the adviser manage it. I'm actually writing this answer specifically because I recently moved a big 401k into a Traditional IRA. A rep from the brokerage, representing my previous employer, kept calling me to find out how they could help (I didn't brush him off). I found that using an IRA provided me with the opportunity to do self-guided investments in funds or even individual stocks, well beyond the limited selection of the old company's 401k. It was useful/interesting to me to invest in low-fee vehicles such as index funds (ie: the Buffett recommendation), and I'll find some stocks as well. Oh and when the old company 401k has certain funds being discontinued, I didn't want to notice the mandated changes years later. So, I'd suggest you consider management and flexibility of the 401k or equivalent, and any of your special personal circumstances/goals. If you end up with a few retirement accounts, I suggest you use an account aggregating website to see or follow your net worth. I know many who, based on various concerns and their portfolio, find an acceptable website to use." Don’t take the cash deposit whatever you do. This is a retirement savings vehicle after all and you want to keep this money designated as such.   You have 3 options:  1) Rollover the old 401k to the new 401k. Once Your new plan is setup you can call who ever runs that plan and ask them how to get started. It will require you filling out a form with the old 401k provider and they’ll transfer the balance of your account directly to the new 401k.  2) Rollover the old 401k to a Traditional IRA. This involves opening a new traditional IRA if you don’t already have one (I assume you don’t). Vanguard is a reddit favorite and I can vouch for them as Well. Other shops like Fidelity and Schwab are also good but since Vanguard is very low cost and has great service it’s usually a good choice especially for beginners.  3) Convert the old 401k to a ROTH IRA. This is essentially the same as Step 2, the difference is you’ll owe taxes on the balance you convert. Why would you voluntarily want to pay taxes f you can avoid them with options 1 or 2? The beauty of the ROTH is you only pay taxes on the money you contribute to the ROTH, then it grows tax free and when you’re retired you get to withdraw it tax free as well. (The money contained in a 401k or a traditional IRA is taxed when you withdraw in retirement).   My $.02. 401k accounts typically have higher fees than IRAs, even if they own the same mutual funds the expense ratios are usually more in the 401k. The last 2 times I’ve changed jobs I’ve converted the 401k money into my ROTH IRA. If it’s a small sum of money and/or you can afford to pay the taxes on the money I’d suggest doing the same.  You can read up heavily on the pros/cons of  ROTH vs Traditional but My personal strategy is to have 2 “buckets” or money when I retire (some in ROTH and some in Traditional). I can withdraw as much money from the Traditional account until I Max out the lowest Tax bracket and then pull any other money I need from the ROTH accounts that are tax free.This allows you to keep taxes fairly low in retirement.  If you don’t have a ROTH now this is a great way to start one. You don't. Say you deposited $5000. Then you converted $4950 to Roth. You declare $4950 as the amount converted and you're done.