are there any types 401ks not sponsored by employers that will take min of $25.00 per wk?

Answer 1

State Farm has one, the minimum is $50 a month.

Answer 2

A Roth IRA mutual fund will do. You can open this kind of account at your local bank, from an insurance company or an investment broker.

Answer 3

try personal money management hedge funds (401) can never take your money and invest it as good as you can just go look at some investment company's bad picks in yahoo finance look in major holders and look where they have lost other ppl money on bad stocks and then decide for yourself if you really want to trust someone else with your hard earned money

Answer 4

ROTH IRA for sure. I'll explain.

Advantages

Provided that a taxpayer has earned income (and is within the modified AGI limits), contributions can be made to a Roth IRA at any age.

At any time, the IRA owner may withdraw up to the total of his contributions (in nominal dollars).

If there is money in the IRA due to conversion from a Traditional IRA, the IRA owner may withdraw up to the total of the converted amount, as long as the "seasoning" period has passed on the converted funds (currently, five years).

Withdrawals of more than the total of contributions + seasoned conversions are considered withdrawals of earnings, and are subject to tax and penalty if they are not qualified.

Earnings withdrawals become automatically qualified in the tax year the participant reaches age 59.5 or becomes disabled, so long as the account is "seasoned" (established for five or more years).

Up to $10,000 in earnings withdrawals are considered qualified if the money is used to acquire a principal residence. This house must be acquired by the IRA owner, their spouse, or their lineal ancestors and descendants. The owner or qualified relative who receives the "first time homeowner" distribution must not have owned a home in the previous 24 months.

When a Roth IRA owner dies, and the spouse is the sole beneficiary of that Roth IRA and he or she also owns one, the surviving spouse may combine the two Roth IRAs into a single account without penalty. Additionally, qualified distributions are also available to other beneficiaries of Roth IRA owners. See IRS Pub 590 for complete details.

If the Roth owner expects his/her tax bracket during retirement to be higher than presently, there is a tax advantage to making contributions to a Roth IRA over a Traditional IRA or similar vehicle. There is no current tax deduction, but money going into the IRA is taxed at the lower current rate, and will not be taxed at the higher future rate when it comes out of the IRA. If a taxpayer is currently in the 15% tax bracket, then a $1000 contribution to a traditional IRA would provide a $150 reduction in current-year tax liability. If that taxpayer were in the 30% tax bracket upon retirement, $1000 of traditional IRA distributions would incur $300 in taxes. Therefore, the person would pay twice as much on retirement income as he or she received in tax benefits from the traditional IRA deduction (and since gains are compounded, this comparison is valid). Therefore, the Roth IRA offers a specific advantage where a person will retire in a higher tax bracket than that used during his or her pre-retirement years.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of the Roth IRA is its lack of forced distributions based on age. All other tax-deferred retirement plans, including the Roth IRA's cousin, the Roth 401k**, require withdrawals to begin at age 70½ (more precisely, by April 1 of the calendar year after age 70½ is reached), and impose an annual minimum distribution once withdrawals begin at any age beyond 59½. The Roth IRA is completely free of these mandates.

DISADVANTAGES

The main disadvantage of a Roth IRA (when compared to a traditional IRA) is that contributions are never tax-deductible. If one contributes $1000 to a traditional IRA while in a high tax bracket, one can often receive a tax deduction, substantially reducing the initial cost of contributing (or, potentially, allowing someone without much disposable income to shelter more income). This is not the case for the Roth IRA. It should be noted that the money in a traditional IRA is taxed once it is withdrawn at retirement. If one is not able to max out one's IRA contributions, and ends up in a lower income tax bracket at retirement, then one will wind up with less usable cash by choosing a Roth IRA over a Traditional IRA.

There are also heavy penalties for early withdrawals of earnings (withdrawals up to the total of contributions + conversions are tax-free). An unqualified withdrawal of earnings will result in federal income tax plus a ten-percent penalty on the amount. Fortunately there are many exceptions, such as buying a first home and paying qualified educational expenses.

COMPARISON OF ROTH IRA, TRADITIONAL IRA, 401(k)

Traditional and Roth accounts: Equal value at retirement
Hypothetical annual withdrawals in retirement before taxes1
After 20 years of contributions and growth, the traditional and Roth accounts would both be worth $177,884 at retirement.

Without accounting for taxes, each account could provide annual withdrawals of $14,807 in retirement.1
Traditional account: Withdrawals are taxed
Hypothetical annual withdrawals in retirement after taxes1
With traditional accounts, taxes are paid on withdrawals. So annual withdrawals from a traditional account would be reduced to $11,105 after taxes of $3,702 are paid.1

Contributions to Roth accounts are made with money that's already been taxed, so qualified withdrawals are not taxed again. Therefore, the Roth account could provide the full $14,807 each year.1
Traditional account: Tax savings can be invested
Hypothetical annual withdrawals in retirement after taxes with annual withdrawals from invested tax savings1,2
With a traditional account, the tax benefit comes at the time money is invested — contributions are not taxed.

To allow for a fair comparison, the potential value of these tax savings with a traditional account needs to be measured.

If the annual tax savings of $900 were invested in a taxable account with the same returns as for the retirement plans, the investment of your tax savings could provide additional annual income of $2,587.2

The additional income would not make up for the taxes paid on withdrawals. Therefore, a Roth account might be better than a Traditional account in this situation.

Input summary
Annual retirement plan contribution:
$3,600
Years to invest until retirement plan withdrawals begin: 20
Hypothetical annual return before retirement: 8%
Current federal income tax rate: 25%
Number of annual withdrawals: 20
Hypothetical annual return in retirement: 6%
Estimated federal income tax rate in retirement: 25%