My wife's job was recently moved out of the area and her 401K will likely need to be moved.  It's only about 6K and we have another from a previous employer that is more.  

Would it be advisable to consolidate the two and/or move them to simplify matters?  We've been informed we'd have to roll it into a traditional IRA.  

Recommendations, hints, leads... would be most appreciated.

WetDog:

I'm in the same boat, I just changed jobs.  I was going to leave my 401k in my previous employer's program but I was watching Suze Orman Friday night and she said a better idea is to do the rollover IRA and ( I missed the details, bear with me) put the cash into a Schwab/Fidelity/eTrade type mutual fund.  Apparently you can do this without a tax penalty.  Sorry I don't know any more, I was going to look into it this week.

The biggest reason for me to do this is b/c Schwab/Fidelity/eTrade have much better options to choose from than my last emplyer's does.

Hartman,
Thanks, that's a good place for me to start  looking.  

As long as the 401k is not put in your name and you just initiate the roll over , there should be no tax consequences. Receive any money from it and you lose close to 50 %. Check out www.fundalarm.com updated the first of the month with a wealth of info.

If you want to transfer  money from a 401(k) to another account without paying tax & penalties you need to do a  Trustee-to-Trustee Rollover.

1) Find a reputable low cost company (like Vanguard).
2) Ask them for the forms for the rollover.
3) Fill out the forms & pay no tax on the transfer.