Can I leave my money in my 401k plan if I leave my employer?

In many cases yes. Depending on the way your retirement plan is designed, if you have over $1,000 or $5,000 (many plans have increased from $5,000 to $7,000 as of 2025) in your account and you leave your employer, your employer must, by law, allow you to keep your balance in that 401k plan even if you are no longer employed by the company. You can continue to control your account and your investment selections just as if you were an employee, but you may not add money to your account. However, some non-WealthStep 401k plans have expensive mutual funds and do not have pre-built portfolio investment options, so it may be to your advantage to roll the money out of the 401k plan in that case, into an IRA account where you can obtain low-cost, pre-built portfolios. WealthStep is one potential alternative for such cases, but you should evaluate carefully to ensure the change is appropriate for you. If you are changing jobs and your new employer offers a 401k plan and allows rollovers, that is another alternative, but review the new 401k plan carefully to see that it is well-built, with reasonably low-cost, pre-built diversified portfolios.