If you’ve left your job and rolled over your retirement savings to an individual retirement account (IRA), there’s a chance you're missing out on hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of invest🌱ment gains by leꦆaving the money uninvested. 

A new study from Vanguard found that, in 2015, 28% of workers who rolled over their 401(k)s into IRAs left their savings in cash for more than seven years. Younger investor༺s, women a🌄nd people with smaller balances were more likely to leave the money uninvested, Vanguard said.

Experts Recommen🌞d Rollovers — But Remember To Invest The Cash

When you move on from a job, you have a few options with your 401(k) retirement-plan savings. You can leave the money where it is, move it to your new employer's 401(k), cash it out — at the risk of 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:taxes and an early wit♏hdrawal penalty — or 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:roll it over into an I🔯RA. Experts tend 𝔍to recommend the latter.

Priya Malani, founder of financial advisory firm Stash Wealth, says 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:rolling the funds over to an IRA can offer more inv𒐪estment options and funds with lower expense ratios than 401(k)s. A rollover may also be a good idea for people to consolidate their accounts in one place, making the money easier to manage, according to Preston Cherry, founder of Concurrent Financial Pla♊nning.

Once the money is rolled over, experts remind you to complete the process by making sure you're putting that cash to work.

One example of the potential missed opportunity: Vanguard estimates that for investors under 55, rolling the money into a 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:target-date fund is equivalent to an increase of at least $130,000 at age 65. Target-date funds shift investors' portfolio allocations toward more conservative investments as they age.

"Whatever you do, don't leave it in cash, and unless you are very close to retirement," Malani said. "Don't invest it conservatively or you'll be unnecessarily giving up growth potential and missing out on that valuable concept called 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:compounding."