Taking charge of your financial future begins with setting goals, forming an investment plan, and establishing rigorous savings habits. Along the way there will be endless calls to your checkbook, aside from the predictable expenses you plan on each month. Some will be compelling temptations like an investment-grade piece of jewelry or a dream-fulfilling big motorcycle. Others will sneak up on you and do not fall in the category of a choice, such as an extended period of unemployment or enormous medical bills in the aftermath of a serious illness.

Getting your hands on cash in an emergency may tempt you to consider tapping your retirement investments. As discussed, certain emergencies do qualify for using retirement monies without a penalty. If you have absolutely no other choice, then you must do what you need to do to get through. Sometimes sacrificing the earnings potential of your retirement savings has to be traded off with taking care of a more immediate need.

Other potholes in the financial road to retirement that may surprise you can occur when you are faced with moving retirement monies from one place to another. This decision is usually associated with changing jobs. This is a juncture at which you will decide what to do with retirement plans you already have in place.

If you are in the early stages of your work life you may face the decision five, six, or more times about what to do with your retirement accounts. Some of the factors you should weigh are:

• Are you vested so that you can take full advantage of the monies invested on your behalf?

• Are you in an account that is “portable,” as most 401(k)s are?

• Can you leave your savings in your old employer's plan if you leave the company?

• Will your new employer accept a rollover from your former employer's plan?

• Will your new and old employers permit you to roll over only part of your savings?

Perhaps the most vulnerable moment in making a transfer of your prior employer's retirement monies is when it comes to you in the form of a check before being reinvested. This is a time to stay strongly committed to the fact that those funds that have been earmarked for retirement remain segregated and properly invested. If your funds come to you in a check, even if they are going to be reinvested, you will experience the following:

• Twenty percent will be withheld immediately for potential federal tax obligations.

• You have sixty days to reinvest, but you will have to come up with the missing 20 percent to keep your former balance intact.

• You can probably deduct that 20 percent withholding when you file your income tax return, but it may or may not result in a refund.

• If you are under 59½, income taxes on the 20 percent will be owed and you will be subject to a 10 percent early-withdrawal penalty.

By far the preferred choice is to move your money through either a rollover IRA or a direct rollover to another company-sponsored plan.

Here are some of the choices to consider when moving around retirement funds:

• Employer contribution 401(k) to employer contribution 401(k)

• Employer-sponsored 401(k) to employer-sponsored Roth 401(k)

• IRA to Roth IRA — if income limits permit

• Diversifying investments in 401(k) away from too much employer stock

• Ability to consolidate retirement accounts

The specific choices available to you when you are ready to move funds will be dictated by a number of factors, including the company you are leaving. Seek out all the facts from your employers, and if you are still in doubt, the advice of a financial professional. Remember that it is perfectly acceptable to change your investments along the course of your career. In fact, it is recommended that you regularly review how your various investments are doing. A job change is a great time to look over all of your investments to see which are worth keeping and where you might want to move in a different direction.