Consider all the options before taking money out of your plan. You must decide for yourself whether you need money badly enough now to dip into your account and possibly incur a penalty. You can sometimes take all of the money out of your account with your employer and put it into a private Individual Retirement Account (IRA) without incurring a penalty and without paying taxes on the amount you take out. This so-called roll over must be made within a certain time period set by law. Currently, the law allows sixty days from the date funds are taken out of your company account before the funds must be deposited into an IRA. Check with your financial institution abut specific amounts and the penalties associated with taking that money out early.. You may also want to consult a financial advisor on how best to reinvest this money. Sometimes your pension account contains shares of employer stock or stock in other companies. Often you are better off not selling the stock at the time of termination, but rolling over and transferring the stock to your own personal IRA retirement account with a bank or stock broker. You might want to leave your pension intact to assure yourself of a steady income at retirement. Defined benefit retirement plans, unlike savings plans, will generally not get any larger with the passage of time. AT the time of your termination, you should get an estimate of what your monthly pension benefit will be when you reach the retirement age and what it would be if you began receiving the pension earlier. Finally, remember that you will be taxed on the money that you withdraw from your pension or savings account. This tax is in addition to any penalty or reduction in benefit imposed for early withdrawal from your account.