<prompt> Human: Throwaway account because frankly Im a little bit embarrassed by how little I know about this stuff at my age, and Im worried its going to turn out that I screwed myself over or something.Ive had 4 jobs in my career, each for about 1.5-2 years. All of my jobs have offered 401k programs and Ive been participating in them since I started. I think I started at around 2 or 4 I was making a very low salary at the time. Peaked at about 14 at my last job since they matched something like 6 and now Im putting in 10 since my new company cant match very small startup.Im not great with financial stuffinvesting, and to be honest the extent of my 401k management since I started my career has been just writing down the amount I thought I could reasonably withhold and forgetting about it. I have no debt and I make a good amount of money now about 73ky so Im in pretty good financial standing.It only occurred to me in the past year or so that I should have been thinking about what happened to the money I put away at my past jobs, and I should have been rolling that money over into my current account each time I changed jobs. I guess I always just assumed that all of my money was going to the same place regardless of where I worked like I said, Im not great with financial stuff.Now, all of the companies Ive worked for are still around and Im sure they all have records of my time there. For my previous job I have my 401k account information and Im confident I can easily roll that all over, but for the previous two jobs Im a lot less sure. Im pretty sure I know which companies they did my 401k through I think they were both Principal, but aside from that I dont think I have a lot of information. Sometimes I have nightmares that theres some kind of you snooze you lose clause on these things where Ill lose all of that money if I dont roll it over eventually. As far as I know that isnt true, but I dont know a lot about this stuff.I guess Im just looking for advice on what I should be doing here. Should I immediately track down all of my previous 401ks and roll them all over into my current one? Or just track them down to I know my account information and exactly how much money I have in them, and then just leave them where they are? Would it be best to contact the companies who managed my 401ks and just work through them, or should I contact my previous employers to get my account info? Have I been an idiot for not paying closer attention to this stuff?Thanks. Please be gentle :  <response>: Be serene.Your 401k balances are still sitting in their respective accounts. They are perhaps feeling a little neglected, but like a puppy when you come home, they will be happy to see you again.Id say contact HR at your former companies. They may simply direct you to the 401k providers, but you could confirm your account numbers and details. You might decide its easiest to do trustee to trustee rollovers of all of them into a single IRA, which you could then invest in what you want. So, find the provider you want and they can initiate the rollovers. Consolidation could make it easier to keep track of and make judging your asset allocation simpler.If you like your current 401k options, you might inquire if it is possible to bring your old 401k balances into it.The key is to do direct trustee to trustee rollovers rather than having it cashed out as a check in your name. If they cut you a check, a 60 day deadline starts by which you have to complete rollover yourself, taxes are preemptively taken out, you have to make up the difference to get the full amount rolled over, then wait for a tax refund to make you whole. Easier to avoid all that if you can by doing the direct rollovers.Edit: You can just leave everything scattered where it is, with management fees if any paid by your former employers. But there is a chance that you or your beneficiaries RIP, OP might forget or not know about them all. Maybe simplifying this is a new years resolution task for 2015. 