Saving for retirement without employer sponsored plan
I'm looking for ways to geared to save for retirement, not general investment. Many mutual fund companies offer a range of target retirement funds for different retirement dates (usually in increments of 5 years). These are funds of funds, that is, a Target 2040 Fund, say, will be invested in five or six different stock and bond mutual funds offered by the same company. Over the years and as the target date approaches closer, the investment mix will change from extra weight given to stock mutual funds towards extra weight being given to bond mutual funds. The disadvantage to these funds is that the Target Fund charges its own expense ratio over and above the expense ratios charged by the mutual funds it invests in: you could do the same investments yourself (or pick your own mix and weighting of various funds) and save the extra expense ratio. However, over the years, as the Target Fund changes its mix, withdrawing money from the stock mutual funds and investing the proceeds into bond mutual funds, you do not have to pay taxes on the profits generated by these transactions except insofar as some part of the profits become distributions from the Target Fund itself. If you were doing the same transactions outside the Target Fund, you would be liable for taxes on the profits when you withdrew money from a stock fund and  invested the proceeds into the bond fund. Variable Annuities would be one option though there are SEC warnings about them, for an option that is tax-deferred and intended to be used for long-term investing such as retirement. There is a bit of a cost to gain the tax-deferral which may not always make them worthwhile. "You might consider working on getting your new employer to sponsor a 401k, there may be options where you can invest and they aren't required to add anything as a match (which gives you higher limits). If they don't match, they may just be liable for some administration fees. If you have any side business that you do, you might also be eligible for other ""self-employed"" options that have higher limits (SEP, Simple - I think they may go up to $15k) although, I'm not sure the nitty gritties of them."
"You're confusing between ""individual"" 401k (they're called ""Solo-401k"" and are intended for self-employed), and Individual Retirement Account (IRA). You can't open a solo-401k without being self employed. You can open an IRA and roll over money from your old 401k to it. You cannot get a loan from IRA. You can ask the 401k plan manager to reissue the checks to the new trust, shouldn't be a problem. Make sure the checks are issued to the trust, not to you, to avoid withholding and tax complications. This is what is called a ""direct"" rollover. You might be able to roll the money over to the 401k of your new employer, it is not always allowed and you should check. You can probably then take a loan from that 401k. However, it diminishes the value of your retirement savings and you should only do it if you have no other choice (being evicted from your home, your children are starving, can't pay for your chemo, etc... this kind of disasters). Otherwise, I'd suggest rolling over to IRA, investing in funds with significantly lower fees (Vanguard target retirements funds for example, or index funds/ETF's), and reassessing your spending and budgeting habits so that you won't need loans from your 401k. Re companies - ETrade is nice, consider also Scottrade, TDAmeriTrade, Vanguard, Fidelity, Sharebuilder, and may be others. These are all discount brokers with relatively low fees, but each has its own set of ""no-fee"" funds." It all depends on your priorities, but if it were me I'd work to get rid of that debt as your first priority based on a few factors: I might shift towards the house if you think you can save enough to avoid PMI, as the total savings would probably be more in aggregate if you plan on buying a house anyway with less than 20% down. Of course, all this is lower priority than funding your retirement at least up to the tax advantaged and/or employer matched maximums, but it sounds like you have that covered. "I am not 100% sure, but I think the answer is this:  You can't max out both.  You could theoretically max out the SIMPLE IRA ($11,500) and then contribute $4,000 to your 401k, but your total can't exceed the 401k limit of $16,500.  This also means you could max out your 401k at $16,500, but you couldn't contribute anything to the SIMPLE IRA.  Note that no matter what, you can't contribute more than $11,500 to your SIMPLE IRA. (Note that this is all independent from your Traditional or Roth IRA, which are subject to their own limits, and not affected by your participation in employer-sponsored plans.) As I understand it, a 401k and a SIMPLE IRA both fall under the umbrella of ""employer-sponsored plans"".  Just like you can't max out two 401k's at two different employers, you can't do it with the 401k and the SIMPLE IRA.  The only weird thing is the contribution limit differences between SIMPLE IRA and 401k, but I don't think the IRS could/would penalize you for working two jobs (enforcing the lower SIMPLE IRA limit for all employer-sponsored retirement accounts). You should probably run the numbers, factoring in the employer match, and figure out which account-contribution scenario makes the most financial sense for you.  However, I'm not sure how the employer match helps you when you're talking about a small business that you own/run.  You may also want to look at how the employer match of the SIMPLE IRA affects the taxes your business pays. Disclaimer #1:  I couldn't find a definitive answer on your specific scenario at irs.gov.  I pieced the above info from a few different ""SIMPLE IRA info"" sites.  That's why I'm not 100% sure.  It seems intuitively correct to me, though.  Does your small business have an accountant?  Maybe you should talk to him/her. Disclaimer #2:  The $ amounts listed above are based on the IRS 2010 limits." As others have explained defined contribution is when you (or your employer) contributes a specified amount and you reap all the investment returns.  Defined benefit is when your employer promises to pay you a specified amount (benefit) and is responsible for making the necessary investments to provide for it.   Is one better than the other? We can argue this either way.   Defined benefit would seem to be more predictable and assured.  The problem being of course that it is entirely reliant upon the employer to have saved enough money to pay that amount.  If the employer fails in that responsibility, then the only fallback is government guarantees.  And of course the government has limitations on what it can guarantee.  For example, from Wikipedia:   The maximum pension benefit guaranteed by PBGC is set by law and adjusted yearly. For plans that end in 2016, workers who retire at age 65 can receive up to $5,011.36 per month (or $60,136 per year) under PBGC's insurance program for single-employer plans. Benefit payments starting at ages other than 65 are adjusted actuarially, which means the maximum guaranteed benefit is lower for those who retire early or when there is a benefit for a survivor, and higher for those who retire after age 65. Additionally, the PBGC will not fully guarantee benefit improvements that were adopted within the five-year period prior to a plan's termination or benefits that are not payable over a retiree's lifetime. Other limitations also apply to supplemental benefits in excess of normal retirement benefits, benefit increases within the last five years before a plan's termination, and benefits earned after a plan sponsor's bankruptcy. By contrast, people tend to control their own defined contribution accounts.  So they control how much gets invested and where.  Defined contribution accounts are always 100% funded.   Defined benefit pension plans are often underfunded.  They expect the employer to step forward and subsidize them when they run short.  This allows the defined benefits to both be cheaper during the employment period and more generous in retirement.  But it also means that employers have to subsidize the plans later, when they no longer get a benefit from the relationship with the employee.   If you want someone else to make promises to you and aren't worried that they won't keep them, you probably prefer defined benefit.   If you want to have personal control over the money, you probably prefer defined contribution.   My personal opinion is that defined benefit plans are a curse.  They encourage risky behavior and false promises.  Defined contribution plans are more honest about what they provide and better match the production of employment with its compensation.  Others see defined benefit plans as the gold standard of pensions. BrenBarn did a great job explaining your options so I won't rehash any of that. I know you said that you don't want to save for retirement yet, but I'm going to risk answering that you should anyway. Specifically, I think you should consider a Roth IRA. When it comes to tax advantaged retirement accounts, once the contribution period for a tax year ends, there's no way to make up for it. For example in 2015 you may contribute up to $5,500 to your IRA. You can make those contributions up until tax day of the following year (April 15th, 2016). After that, you cannot contribute money towards 2015 again.  So each year that goes by, you're losing out on some potential to contribute. As for why I think a Roth IRA specifically could work well for you: I'm advocating this because I think it's a good balance. You put away some money in a retirement account now, when it will have the most impact on your future retirement assets, taking advantage of a time you will never have again. At a low cost custodian like Vanguard, you can open an IRA with as little as $1,000 to start and choose from excellent fund options that meet your risk requirements. If you end up deciding that you really want that money for a car or a house or beer money, you can withdraw any of the contributions without fear of penalty or additional tax. But if you decide you don't really need to take that money back out, you've contributed to your retirement for a tax year you likely wouldn't have  otherwise, and wouldn't be able to make up for later when you have more than enough to max out an IRA each year. I also want to stress that you should have a liquid emergency fund (in a savings or checking account) to deal with unexpected emergencies before funding something like this. But after that, if you have no specific goal for your savings and you don't know for sure you'll actually need to spend it in the near future, funding a Roth IRA is worth considering in my opinion. My perspective is from the US. Many employers offer 401(k)s and you can always contribute to an IRA for either tax deferred or tax free investment growth. If you're company offers a 401(k) match you should always contribute the maximum amount they max or you're leaving money on the table.    Companies can't always support pensions and it isn't the best idea to rely on one entirely for retirement unless your pension is from the federal government.   Even states such as Illinois are going through extreme financial difficulties due to pension funding issues. It's only going to get worse and if you think pension benefit accrual isn't going to be cut eventually you'll have another thing coming. I'd be worried if I was a state employee in the middle of my career with no retirement savings outside of my pension.   Ranting: Employees pushed hard for some pretty absurd commitments and public officials let the public down by giving in. It seems a little crazy to me that someone can work for the state until they're in their 50's and then earn 70% of their 6 figure salary for the rest of their life. Something needs to be done but I'd be surprised if anyone has the political will to make tough choices now before thee options get much much worse and these states are forced to make a decision. Yes, you may make non-deductible contributions to an IRA. The main benefit of a non-deductible IRA is tax-deferred earnings. If the investment pays out dividends, they will be kept in the IRA (whether you take them in cash and put them in a Cash Management Account, or you automatically reinvest them). You do not get taxed on these earnings until you withdraw from the IRA during retirement. If your income at that time is significantly lower than your income while you're working, you will be in a lower tax bracket (unless tax rates change drastically between now and then), so the taxes you pay on these earnings will be lower than if you'd invested outside the IRA and paid taxes along the way. You also get the benefit of compounding of the tax-deferred earnings. There's one caveat -- when you withdraw from the IRA, all the growth is treated as ordinary income. Even if some of it is capital gains, it will be taxed at your ordinary income rate, not your capital gains rate. So this is most beneficial for investments that produce dividends.  If you have a mix of deductible and non-deductible contributions to your IRA, the tax on the principle portion of your withdrawals is pro-rated based on the ratio of deductible to total contributions. This ensures that you eventually get taxed for the deductible portion (it's not really tax-free, it's tax-deferred), but don't get taxed twice for the non-deductible portion. Another option, if your 401(k) plan allows it, is to make after-tax contributions to the 401(k). At the end of the year, you can make an in-service distribution of these contributions and their earnings from the 401(k) to a Roth Conversion IRA. This allows you to contribute to a Roth IRA even if you're above the income limit for normal Roth IRA contributions. You can also do this even if you're also making non-deductible contributions to your regular IRA. "Pretty simple actually. This is a state-run defined benefit plan, where the benefit is calculated based on the length of the employment and the contributed amounts. This is what in the US is known as the Social Security.  This is a defined contribution plan, where the employee can chose the level of risk based on certain pre-defined investment guidelines (more conservative or more aggressive). In Poland, it appears that there's a certain amount of the state-mandated SS tax is transferred to these plans. Nothing in the US is like that, but you can see it as a mandatory IRA with a preset limited choice of mutual funds to invest into, as an analogy. The recent change was to reduce the portion of the madatory contribution that is diverted to this plan from 7+% to 2.3% (on account of expanding the contribution to (1)). Probably the recent crashes of the stock markets that affected these accounts lead to this decision. This is voluntary defined contribution plan, similar to the US 401Ks. This division is actually pretty common, not unique to Poland. I'd say its the ""standard"" pension scheme, as opposed to what we're used to in the US."