Solo 401k- how to set up?

[Permanent Temp]

I currently only make about 44K or so from my job but I am self employed 1099 and an LLC but not an S corp.

I was wondering has anyone set up a solo 401k and if so where is the best place to do so when you make as little money as I do now.

I want to put away at least 10% of my income each year. I am 30 years old and only have about 4K in a Roth IRA. I had contract work until now and I bought a house now that things have settled down again I want to get super serious about saving for retirement. My husband is not self employed but he contributes to a 401K at work he makes twice what I do and puts away about 8%. He has far more money in his account than I do.

[Petunia 100]

This is where I would go: https://investor.vanguard.com/what-w...iness/overview

[MonkeyMama]

Are you unable to contribute to a ROTH or Traditional IRA, because of your husband's income?

If your goal is to put aside less than $5,500, it would be far simpler to just contribute to one of these vehicles.

& if for whatever reason you can't, then a SEP IRA is also quite simple. The only reason to do a solo 401k would be if you want to contribute a larger sum. It's very involved and a lot more administration. I know more companies are offering solo 401ks very cheaply these days, but I still wouldn't bother with all that unless there was a need to. You can always open one up later when you want to contribute more. In general you can do 20% into a SEP IRA. If you add a solo 401k then you can put in an additional $18,000. The solo 401k is useful if you want to put in more than 20% of your income to retirement.

[disneysteve]

Are you unable to contribute to a ROTH or Traditional IRA, because of your husband's income?

a SEP IRA is also quite simple

If your husband makes 2x what you do, that's 88K plus your 44K. That still has you able to do a Roth. So if you want to contribute 10% of your income, or $4,400, just stick with the Roth. Why complicate things?

If you do want/need something beyond the Roth (because you up your contributions beyond the $5,500 Roth limit) then I'd agree with the SEP IRA. Very simple to set up and no costs involved other than the investment expenses themselves.

[Permanent Temp]

This year he will do sales for the whole year this year. Last year he only did this job for half the year so it's likely he will make far more money this year.

[scfr]

I agree with what Monkey Mama said.

For my husband's business we used to have a SEP IRA (Keoghs before that but I think those are pretty much ancient history), and it was only in the past year that we opened a solo 401K.

A SEP is a good place to start.

My only advice is to revisit your choices every year. I wish we had started the solo 401K a year earlier, but it was when I was doing our 2015 tax return early in 2016 that I realized what we should be doing and by then it was too late for 2015. So 2016 set up it was.

Once you have a retirement plan for the self-employed, it will never be a "set it and forget about it for the rest of your life" kind of thing.