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Are you a business owner that is finally starting to see some profits? You have been slugging away for several years and now you are finally in the black and you want to start thinking about retirement. You know that you need to save, but as a business owner you have a plethora of different retirement plan options that as an individual you didn't. If you are confused and bewildered and not sure what direction to go, I completely understand.

I was in the exact same situation as you. I was a W2 employee, and then when I became a small business owner I now had many different options that I could choose from and initially it was overwhelming. It was easier doing it for the client, but now that I was actually on the business owner's side of things, the 1099 independent contractor side of things, I now wanted to make sure that I was doing the best retirement plan for me. If you are looking to see what retirement plan is best for you, here are a few options to consider:

1. A traditional or Roth IRA. Now I am sure you are probably wondering, "Well Jeff, I could do that when I was an individual. What is the benefit for me doing it as a business owner?" Well here's the thing; the beauty of doing a traditional or Roth IRA, if you are not putting money in those plans at all, and maybe you are profitable but you are not as profitable as you would like to be, under the age of 50 and under you can still put in $5,000 on either the traditional or Roth IRA. At least that is a good starting point. Now, if you can put in more than that 5,000 then we'll start looking at the other options coming up.

2. A simple IRA. The name is a little bit misleading because to me it is not quite that simple. Here is the general gist: You're able to put in up to $11,500 per year into the simple IRA. Over the age of 50 is allowed a $2,500 catch up. But if you have employees, here is where it gets a little bit trickier. To make it simple, just know that you're going to have to put in about 3% of your employees' wages as an employer contribution. That is how much, as a business owner, you're going to be out for each employee. There are certain rules that say you can dip below that 3% over a 2-out-of-the-5-year period, but I don't want to muddy the waters too much. Just know that for the most part you're going to have to put in about 3% of your employees' salary to be able to contribute the 3% for yourself as well. Now that might sound a little bit confusing and it kind of is, but if you go to the blog and do a Google search for "simple IRA rules", you'll find out more about the simple IRA and see if that applies to you.