This is not a dumb questions at all!

You are right in that you can NOT add on to your wifes 401(k) plan.
She can only put in her $15,000 max for 2006 (be sure she is putting in
at least what the company is matching to take advantage of the "free
money"). However, you are not out of luck when it comes to saving for
retirement. Actually, since you have your own company, you can put
away even more money for retirement. Before I forget, you will want to
roll your 401(k) out of your old job, assuming you stop working there
when you start your own company from home. Fidelity.com is a great
place to go to do this since it is free to roll a 401k into an IRA.
The reason people do this rollover is because of the limitations you
have in your 401(k). While 401(k)'s have limited investment options,
an IRA is able to invest in anything.
Back to the retirmement plan for an individual business owner. It is
called a Self-Employed 401(k) (imagine that!). Go here to see the
details of the plan:
http://personal.fidelity.com/products/retirement/?bar=c

The one other thing I would stress to you is to max out your IRA. The
max for 2005, which you have until mid April to max out, is $4,000.
This stays the same for 2006.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

In article <1140717828.472257.16010[at]z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> ,
batesrt[at]hotmail.com wrote:

- quote -

She can max out her 401K, but there is no concept of someone
else "getting on" or joining a 401K. It is an individual plan.
Most places will let someone contribute up to 15% of their
income.

- quote -

It isn't so much dumb from a financial standpoint, but it is
dumb from a business stand point. If you don't have any business
background or skills, then you at least need to hire those skills.
That is like saying that you want to do a little brain surgery,
but don't know how, so you want to know if you can use a hack
saw rather than a scalpel. If you want to have any chance at
all of making a profit in your business, you have to do a little
learning, or hire a great team. If you wing it, you will get
burned over the long run from things that you have no current
concept of.

-john-

--
================================================== ====================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708 john[at]johnweeks.com
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
================================================== ====================

Go to the Department of Labor and look up retirement plans for small
businesses.

SIMPLE, SEP, Solo 401k, Solo Defined Benefit plans and a host of others can
be used.


<batesrt[at]hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1140717828.472257.16010[at]z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

Hi, my wife and I are both employed full time at seperate companies and
have seperate medical and 401k plans. I'm considering starting my own
business from home, which means to get health benefits I'm assuming
just adding onto hers would be best. But what about 401k investing,
since I won't have one any more, is it possible to add on to hers at
all?

Maybe a dumb question but figured I should still make sure. I'm
assuming I can't, and that the best bet would be just to have her
completely max out her 401k (company 50% match up to 10%, 30% pay
deduction total limit), and then if she's short on spending money I can
always help there. Any feedback would be great! Thanks