MARK KOHLERMain Street Professionals, Main Street Professionals, Main Street Professionals, Main Street Professionals, Main Street Professionals, LLC · Owner at Main Street Professionals, LLC

Can You Double Your 401k Savings?

3 Nov 2025 · 1 min

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In this segment, Mark Kohler explains how couples can dramatically increase their retirement savings by combining several tax‑advantaged strategies. He starts with the use of a solo 401(k) and the technique of gross‑up‑ing a spouse’s payroll so the spouse can contribute the maximum $23,000 (or more via backdoor methods) to a 401(k). He emphasizes that this should be done after fully funding each partner’s Roth IRA ($7,000 each). For businesses with multiple employees, where a solo 401(k) isn’t possible, he suggests adding the spouse to payroll to achieve the same $23,000 contribution limit under a group or Safe Harbor 401(k). He outlines how the combined contributions can reach roughly $30,000 per person ($7,000 Roth + $23,000 401(k)), totaling about $60,000 for a couple, and notes that solo plans can allow even higher contributions when backdoor Roth strategies are employed. Finally, he briefly mentions additional retirement vehicles such as 223 plans as further options for maximizing savings.

Chapters

If you have a solo 401k and you're both making enough money to really double down on the 401k, and you have that solo, what you're now doing is grossing up your spouse's payroll so that he or she can really throw down in the 401k. Now, let me point out something here. This is after you did the Roth. See, if you're already funding the Roth IRA and you both put in seven grand, hey, 14 grand in savings, that's pretty good. But some people are like, hey, we had a great year in the business. We want to open a solo 401k and throw down another 23 each and maybe even more with this backdoor strategy. But when you have a group or a Safe Harbor 401k player because you have other employees, well, you say, well, I can't do the solo, you know, so we're not going to do it. You can still add your spouse to payroll and they could do 23,000. So now they're doing seven in Roth and a 23 in a 401k. That could be Roth as well. Now you're dumping 30 grand into your 401k, and in your spouse's 401k, that could be the 60 you're referring to is combined. But there's really the solo where it's even more with this backdoor strategy. And then you've got the 223s.