<prompt> Human: I lost my job on Wednesday. See Thanks again for the supports from the community, I feel I should give something back. I just rollover my 401k contributions to traditional IRA account with Vanguard. When I lost my job, I was faced with the question of what to do with my 401k. There were three options:1. Leave it the current 401k provider.2. Cash it. 3. Rollover to Traditional IRA or another 401k once I found a new job.I dont like option 1 because fund selections with my current 401k provider was mediocre, and fee was high. I could get better fund selections and lower fee with Vanguard.I also dont like cashing it, then you would have to pay 10 penalty plus state and federal income taxes. This is the reason Rpersonalfinance often advise everyone to have a emergency fund, so you dont have to make poor financial decision by when you are in a tough spot.Rollover to Traditional IRA or 401k makes sense to me. I decided to not rollover to another 401k once I find a new job because then I could face with same problems of mediocre fund selections and high fee. Rollover to Traditional IRA makes most sense to me. I dont have to pay any income taxes on the rollover and I got to choose from great fund selections and lower fee with Vanguard. Theres two ways to do rollover. I could either have my 401k provider cut me a check, then I would deposit it in my checking account and within 60 days send a check to Vanguard for rollover OR do a direct rollover. I dont like first way of doing rollover there too many chances of making mistakes. If I didnt send out the check within the 60 days limit, its 10 penalty plus state and federal income taxes. I like direct rollover much better. What I do with direct rollover was that I filled out a form from my current 401k provider and have them directly write a check to Vanguard. The whole direct rollover process was easy. I called up Vanguard at 800-523-9442 and ask them to help with my paperwork, told them how much the check is going to be, and lastly told them what funds I want the check to deposit into. The phone conversation took less than 15 minutes. Most of my time was spent researching what funds to deposit the check, that didnt take that long either 1hour spent.And thats it. I took care of my former employers 401k and transferred into traditional IRA with Vanguard.Disclaimer: Im not affiliated with Vanguard, I just really like them. You could use other company for your traditional IRA.  <response>: For anyone else needing to do a 401k403betc rollover to an IRA: ALWAYS do a direct rollover. Retirement plan non-IRA ones have a mandatory tax withholding of 20. The check your receive is only 80 of your balance, so if you take it and forward the check amount to an IRA, you are missing 20 which is credited towards your taxes. If you dont rollover the 20 additional amount out of pocket, the distribution is considered received and subject to a 10 early distribution penalty for those not at retirement age or with a qaulifying exception. Again, only use a direct rollover when moving from retirement plans to IRAs 