Get it In cash

Once you have left your employer you can ask them to do a cash out 401k and give you the money in a form of a check or depositing it into your bank account.  This is only an option to consider if you are hard up for cash and have no other way of getting money.  The reason is because your company with automatically take 20% of your 401k to pay for mandatory taxes.  Then, if you do not roll over that money into a new 401k or other retirement plan you will need to claim that money as income and will pay even more taxes. So while this option seems nice it can be costly.

Move It To Your New Company

If you have decided to take a new job with a new company and they have a 401k plan available then you can rollover that money into their account. This requires some paperwork and your old company getting in touch with your new company to complete the transaction.  You can then choose your investments with your new company and your retirement plan will continue to grow.

Keeping It Where It Is

Sometimes people are just not sure of what they want to do. Perhaps they want to talk to their financial advisor or what to weight a few options first. If this is the case then you can leave the money in the current plan until you have a new plan set up.  There may be some fee’s involved with this but it’s a smart choice to make if you want to check out a new companies 401k options or even an IRA or something else. It’s better than cashing out thats for sure.