401k increase from stay at home spouse?

I forgot the exact number, but let's say that your max, pre tax, 401k contributions for 2007 is $15,000. If you spouse is not working, are you does that amount increase? If not, any other suggestions to increase contributions, to make up for "missing" a 2nd income contribution into a retirement fund?

The amount does not increase. You can only contribute up to the maximum standard and your spouse's job situation has nothing to do with it.

You can open IRAs for yourself and your spouse and make contributions. These contributions are not pre-tax. You can open Roth or Traditional (or both) but the contributions cannot exceed the 4k max per person, or 8k total for tax year 2006.

http://www.irs.gov/publications/p590/ch0...

You can only contribute to a SEP IRA a percentage of your income up to a maximum amount (25% up to $44k). You cannot just make massive payments because you are self-employed.

The maximum contributions increase if you are over age 50.

That's what a Roth IRA is for, assuming you are under the income thresholds.

Otherwise, can you think of a way your wife can make any money at home? You could do a SEP IRA and put massive amounts of money in, up to like $35K per year. If you are making sufficient money with your income, and sounds like you are if you're already maxing out a 401K and looking for new investments, you could just dump all her profit into savings.

Or can you somehow get some 1099 income and do the same?

I think you might be thinking about the spousal IRA.

The 401(k) contribution limits have nothing to do with be married or having a non-working spouse.

The IRA is your only bet....that's why the phaseout comp goes up if one spouse is not eligible for a 401k.

Wasn't long ago that the limit that someone could put into a plan was 25% of comp....they removed that and made it 100% of comp up to 15k just for spouses who didn't have a 401k. Evidently the government feels that 19,000 is plenty to put in on an annual basis.