What's the best way to manage all the 401K accounts I've accumulated from my past jobs?
I rolled mine over from the company I was at into my own brokerage house.  You can't roll them into a Roth IRA, so I needed to setup a traditional IRA. There is paperwork your old jobs can provide you.  I had to put in some mailing addresses, some account numbers and turn them in.  My broker received it, I chose what I wanted to invest it in and that was that.  No tax penalty or early withdrawal penalty.  The key to avoiding penalties is to have your past employers send the money directly to another retirement fund, not send a check to you. "Open an investment account on your own and have them roll the old 401K accounts into either a ROTH or traditional IRA. Do not leave them in old 401k accounts and definitely don't roll them into your new employer's 401K. Why? Well, as great as 401K accounts are, there is one thing that employers rarely mention and the 401K companies actively try to hide:    Most 401K plans are loaded with HUGE fees. You won't see them on your statements, they are often hidden very cleverly with accounting tricks. For example, in several plans I have participated in, the mutual fund symbols may LOOK like the ones you see on the stock tickers, but if you read the fine print they only ""approximate"" the underlying mutual fund they are named for. That is, if you multiply the number of shares by the market price you will arrive at a number higher than the one printed on your statement.  The ""spread"" between those numbers is the fee charged by the 401K management company, and since employees don't pick that company and can't easily fire them, they aren't very competitive unless your company is really large and has a tough negotiator in HR. If you work for a small company, you are probably getting slammed by these fees. Also, they often charge fees for the ""automatic rebalancing"" service they offer to do annually to your account to keep your allocation in line with your current contribution allocations.  I have no idea why it is legal for them not to disclose these fees on the statements, but they don't. I had to do some serious digging to find this out on my own and when I did it was downright scary. In one case they were siphoning off over 3% annually from the account using this standard practice. HOWEVER, that is not to say that you shouldn't participate in these plans, especially if there is an employer match. There are fees with any investment account and the ""free money"" your employer is kicking in almost always offsets these fees. My point here is just that you shouldn't keep the money in the 401K after you leave the company when you have an option to move it to an account with much cheaper fees." I'd roll them all into one account, just for your own convenience.  It's a pain to keep track of lots of different accounts, esp. since you need logins/passwords, etc for all of them, and we all have plenty of those.  :) Pick a place like Vanguard or Fidelity (for example), where you can find investment options with lower fees, and do the standard rollover.  Once all the accounts are rolled into one, you can think about how to invest the stuff.  (Some good investments require larger minimums, so if you have several old 401ks, putting them together will give you more options.) Rolling them over is not hard, if you have paperwork from each of the 401ks.  You might be able to DIY online, but I found it helpful to call and talk to a person when I did this.  You just need account numbers, etc.  If you are moving brokerage accounts, you may need to provide paper documents/applications, which might require getting them notarized (I found a notary at my bank, even though the accounts I was moving from and to weren't at my bank), which means you'll need to provide IDs, etc. and get a special crimped seal after the notary witnesses your signature.
"Switching to only 401k or only SPY?  Both bad ideas.  Read on. You need multiple savings vehicles.  401k, Roth IRA, emergency fund.  You can/should add others for long term savings goals and wealth building.  Though you could combine the non-tax-advantaged accounts and keep track of your minimum (representing the emergency fund). SPY is ETF version of SPDR index mutual fund tracking the S&P 500 index.  Index funds buy weighted amounts of members of their index by an algorithm to ensure that the total holdings of the fund model the index that they track.  They use market capitalization and share prices and other factors to automatically rebalance.   Individual investors do not directly affect the composition or makeup of the S&P500, at least not visibly.  Technically, very large trades might have a visible effect on the index makeup, but I suspect the size of the trade would be in the billions.   An Electronically Traded Fund is sold by the share and represents one equal share of the underlying fund, as divided equally amongst all the shareholders.  You put dollars into a fund, you buy shares of an ETF. In the case of an index ETF, it allows you to ""buy"" a fractional share of the underlying index such as the S&P 500. For SPY, 10 SPY shares represent one S&P basket.  Targeted retirement plan funds combine asset allocation into one fund.  They are a one stop shop for a diversified allocation.  Beware the fees though.  Always beware the fees. Fidelity offers a huge assortment of plans.  You should look into what is available for you after you decide how you will proceed.  More later. SPY is a ETF, think of it as a share of stock.  You can go to a bank, broker, or what have you and set up an account and buy shares of it.  Then you have x shares of SPY which is the ETF version of SPDR which is an index mutual fund. If the company is matching the first 10% of your income on a 1:1 basis, that would be the best I've heard of in the past two decades, even with the 10 year vesting requirement.  If this is them matching 1 dollar in 10 that you contribute to 401k, it may be the worst I've ever heard of, especially with 10 year vesting.  Typical is 3-5% match, 3-5 year vesting. Bottom line, that match is free money.  And the tax advantage should not be ignored, even if there is no match. Research: I applaud your interest.  The investments you make now will have the greatest impact on your retirement.   Here's a scenario:  If you can figure out how to live on 50% of your take home pay (100k * 0.90 * 0.60 * 0.5 / 12) (salary with first 10% in 401k at roughly 60% after taxes, social security, medicare, etc. halved and divided by 12 for a monthly amount), you'll have 2250 a month to live on.  Since you're 28 and single, it's far easier for you to do than someone who is 50 and married with kids.  That leaves you with 2250 a month to max out 401k and Roth and invest the rest in wealth building.  After four or five years the amount your investments are earning will begin to be noticeable.  After ten years or so, they will eclipse your contributions.  At that point you could theoretically live of the income.  This works with any percentage rate, and the higher your savings rate is, the lower your cost of living amount is, and the faster you'll hit an investment income rate that matches your cost of living amount.  At least that's the early retirement concept.   The key, as far as I can tell, is living frugally, identifying and negating wasteful spending, and getting the savings rate high without forcing yourself into cheap behavior.  Reading financial independence blog posts tells me that once they learn to live frugally, they enjoy it.   It's a lot of work, and planning, but if you want to be financially independent, you are definitely in a good position to consider it. Other notes:" Your question is very widely scoped, making it difficult to reply to, but I can provide my thoughts on at least the following part of the question: I have a 401k plan with T. Rowe Price, should I use them for other investments too? Using your employer's decision, on which 401k provider they've chosen, as a basis for making your own decision on a broker for investing $100k when you don't even know what kind of investments you want seems relatively unwise to me, even if one of your focuses is simplicity.  That is, unless your $100k is tax-advantaged (e.g. an IRA or other 401k) and your drive for simplicity means you'd be happy to add $100k to any of your existing 401k investments.  In which case you should look into whether you can roll the $100k over into your employer's 401k program. For the rest of my answer, I'll assume the $100k is NOT tax-advantaged. I assume you're suggesting this idea because of some perceived bundling of the relationship and ease of dealing with one company & website?  Yes, they may be able to combine both accounts into a single login, and you may be able to interact with both accounts with the same basic interface, but that's about where the sharing will end.  And even those benefits aren't guaranteed.  For example, I still have a separate site to manage my money in my employer's 401k @ Fidelity than I do for my brokerage/banking accounts @ Fidelity.  The investment options aren't the same for the two types of accounts, so the interface for making and monitoring investments isn't either. And you won't be able to co-mingle funds between the 401k and non-tax-advantaged money anyway, so you'll have two different accounts to deal with even if you have a single provider.  Given that you'll have two different accounts, you might as well pick a broker/provider for the $100k that gives you the best investment options, lowest fees, and best UI experience for your chosen type/goal of investments. I would strongly recommend figuring out how you want to invest the $100k before trying to figure out which provider to use as a broker for doing the investment. "This might sound harsh, but the first thing I would suggest is to stop making excuses.  I wasn't able to continue due to pressure from college and family The college I went to was horrible. Employers can very easily hire foreign work-force for   very cheap; for example as a citizen if I work $10 an hour, they can   get someone from outside to work for $5 per hour There's no guarantee that the project will succeed. I cannot really work and at the same time develop software on my free   time.  Despite my failures in the past, I was not the main person that's   responsible for those failures. Even if all of this is true, it's not helping you move forward and it seems to be getting in the way of creating a good action plan and motivating yourself to succeed. If you believe (based on past experiences) that you are doomed to fail, then you are indeed doomed to fail. You need to take a step back and re-evaluate your current circumstances and what you can do to reach your goals. You have a couple of things working in your favor here. It's great that you are debt free. That already puts you ahead of a lot of your peers.  You have the option of living with your parents. Presumably for no rent, or at least much lower rent than you would have to pay if you move out. This is worth literally thousands of $/£/€ for every year you stay. Now, onto your questions: 1) Should I quit regular programming for a normal job because I never monetized programming so I can move out of my parents' home? Are you being paid for this ""regular programming""? If so, are you being paid more than minimum wage? If not, it's perfectly acceptable to consider alternative ways to spend your time and generate income. However, this doesn't have to be at the expense of living with your parents. Have you thought about getting a new or second job while still living with them? If you absolutely must move out of your parent's home, consider renting a room in a house with other people to keep the rent costs to a minimum. That way, even if your main job is low paying, you should be able to put aside some money each month for future endeavors.  2) Should I monetize programming and gamble with the future? What does this mean? Are you thinking you'll write a mobile app and sell thousands of copies for 99¢ each? That would indeed be a big gamble, but maybe that's not what you meant, so you'll need to clarify. 3) Would it be wise to essentially quit programming for the sake of a minimum wage job? I'm not sure how this is different from question 1. So I'll reiterate what I said there - moving out is going to be expensive. You can still do it, but you're asking on a Personal Finance site where the focus is usually how to minimize living costs and maximize income. Without knowing more about where you live (employment opportunities, cost of living) the default recommendation is usually to save money by staying in your parents house. TLDR: Don't focus on anyone else. They are not preventing you from getting the job you want. Look at your own skills and qualifications (not just programming, consider all of your abilities). What are you good at? Who might need those skills? What is the cost of reaching those people (commute time, moving nearer)? What is the reward? If the reward exceeds the cost, start approaching those people. Show them what you can do." First, to answer the question.  The benefit of a 401k is that you don't have to pay income tax on the money contributed nor do you pay capital gains tax on the money that accumulates.  You get that with the restriction that you can't willy nilly remove and contribute money to the account (and you are taxed on withdrawals, more severely if you do it before you are 65).  Similar sorts of restrictions apply to all retirement accounts which give tax benefits.  Now, for the 7000 not providing benefit.  Assuming a very modest 4% growth, over 40 years 7000 becomes 34,671. Not something to sneeze at (inflation, risk reward, blah, blah, blah, it is less than it looks, but 4% is really pretty low, the stock market averages anywhere from 7-&gt;10% and IIRC the bond market is somewhere around 5%).  Now, certainly, to avoid bankruptcy you should withdraw.  However, if it is possible, you will be best served by keeping the money in your 401k account.  The penalties and lost earning opportunities are pretty significant.  /u/BeatArmy99 [has the numbers](http://www.reddit.com/r/finance/comments/2ct0qy/why_cant_i_access_my_401k_if_its_my_money/cjiorl7) for how much you lose by doing an early withdraw.  Don't do this lightly and I would suggest avoiding cashing out the whole thing if you can. "I'm going to discuss this, in general, as specific investment advice isn't allowed here. What type of account is the $60K in now? I mean - Is it in a 401(k), IRA or regular account/CD/money market?  You are still working? Does your company offer any kind of matched 401(k)? If so, take advantage of that right up the level they'll match. If not, are you currently depositing to pretax IRAs? You can't just deposit that $60K into an IRA if it isn't already, but you can put $11k/yr ($5 for you, $6K for hubby if you make $11K or more this year.) Now, disclaimer, I am anti-annuity. Like many who are pro or con on issues, this is my nature. The one type of annuity I actually like is the Immediate Annuity. The link is not for an end company, it shows quotes from many and is meant as an example. Today, a 65 yr old man can get $600/mo with a $100K purchase. This is 7.2%, in an economy in which rates are sub 3%. You give up principal in exchange for this higher annual return.  This is a viable solution for the just-retired person whose money will run out when looking at a 4-5% withdrawal but 1% CD rate. In general, these products are no more complex that what I just described, unlike annuities sold to younger fold which combine high fees with returns that are so complex to describe that most agents can't keep their story straight.  Aside from the immediate flavor, all other annuities are partial sold (there's a quote among finance folk - ""annuities are sold, not bought"") based on their tax deferral features. I don't suspect you are in a tax bracket where that feature has any value to you.  At 48/54, with at least 10 years ahead of you, I'd research 'diversification' and 'asset allocation'. Even $60K is enough to proper invest these funds until you retire and then decide what's right for you.   Beginners' Guide to Asset Allocation, Diversification, and Rebalancing is an interesting introduction, and it's written by the SEC, so your tax dollars paid for it.  Some months ago, I wrote Diversifying to Reduce Risk, which falls short of a complete discussion of asset allocation, but it does illustrate the power of being in a stock/bond mix. The ups and downs were reduced significantly compared to the all stock portfolio.  (for follow up or to help others reply to you, a bit more detail on the current investments, and how you are devastated, eg was there a huge loss from what you had a few years ago?) Edit - The original poster hasn't returned. Posted the question and left. It's unfortunate as this was someone who would benefit from the dialog, and the answers here can help others in a similar position, but I feel more discussion is in order for the OP. Last, I caught a downvote on my reply today. I take no offense, but curious which part of my answer the DVer disagreed with." The first two answers to this are very good, but I feel like there are a couple of points they left out that were a little too long for comments. First off take a look at the expense percentage,the load fees, and the average turnover ratio for the funds in your retirement account (assuming they are mutual funds). Having low expense fees <1% preferably and turnover ratios will help tremendously because those eat into returns whether the value of the fund goes up or down. The load fees (either incoming or outgoing) will lower the amount of money you actually put in and get out of the fund. There are thousands of no-load funds and most that have a backend load for taking the money out have clauses that lower that percentage to zero over several years. It is mostly there to keep people from trying to swing trade with mutual funds and pull their money out too quickly.  The last thing I would suggest is to look at diversifying the holdings in your account. Bond funds have been up this year even though the stock market has done poorly. And they provide interest income that can increase the amount of shares you own even when the value of the bonds might have gone down. "I use the (gratis, libre) command-line program ledger for my personal accounts.  It handles funds across accounts gracefully, through a feature called ""Virtual Accounts"".  A transaction can add or subtract money from a virtual account, which need not balance with all the other entries in the transaction.  Then it's just a matter of setting up reports to include or exclude these accounts." Given your needs, GNUcash will do swimmingly. I've used it for the past 3 years and while it's a gradual learning process, it's been able to resolve most stuff I've thrown at it. Schedule bills and deposits in the calendar view so I can keep an eye on cash flow.  GNUcash has scheduled payments and receipts and reconcilation, should you need them. I prefer to keep enough float to cover monthly expenses in accounts rather than monitor potential shortfalls.   Track all my stock and mutual fund investments across numerous accounts. It pulls stock, mutual and bond quotes from lots of places, domestic and foreign. It can also pull transaction data from your brokers, if they support that.  I manually enter all my transactions so I can keep control of them. I just reconcile what I entered into Quicken based on the statements sent to me. I do not use Quicken's bill pay There's a reconciliation mode, but I don't use it personally. The purpose of reconcilation is less about catching bank errors and more about agreeing on the truth so that you don't incur bank fees. When I was doing this by hand I found I had a terrible data entry error rate, but on the other hand, the bayesian importer likes to mark gasoline purchases from the local grocery store as groceries rather than gas. I categorize all my expenditures for help come tax time. GNUcash has accounts, and you can mark expense accounts as tax related. It also generates certain tax forms for you if you need that. Not sure what all you're categorizing that's helpful at tax time though. I use numerous reports including. Net Worth tracking, Cash not is retirement funds and total retirement savings. Tons of reports, and the newest version supports SQL backends if you prefer that vs their reports.