<prompt> Human: Hey All!I have a quick question for you that I am having a hard time answering.Here are the basics:I have a job at a university that pays my full salary without any taxes deducted. My husband has a job that pays him with taxes deducted. We have no debts besides our mortgage and have been maxing out our Roth IRAs each year and would like to begin contributing to a 401k or similar account.Here are my questions:1. I get all of my money pre-income tax - should I be investing this into a Roth IRA? That seems wrong, since the money hasnt been taxed, but it also seems weird to be writing a personal check to a traditional IRA. How does this work?2. My work does not offer a 401k for people with salary configurations like mine. Where do I begin to invest after maxing my IRA? What kind of account do I use?Thanks all!Assistant: Are you an independent contractor?Human: Hey! I am not technically an independent contractor. I am technically a research scientist and hold my own grant which is paid to the university and then passed on to me. At the end of the year I get a 1098. Assistant: A 1098 is used to deduct certain expenses like tuition. AFAIK you cant be paid via a 1098. But it sounds like your grant is considered non taxable income so you cant contribute to an IRA or 401k.Human: Interesting... I definitely pay taxes come year end and the only income tax form I get is a 1098. Basically, from my understanding, what happens is that any expenses I pay which is basically none are subtracted from the total amount disbursed to me, and then I pay taxes on the difference. Does that make sense?  <response>: Your grant is taxable income but its not earned income. If it were earned income, youd have to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on it. You can only contribute earned income into retirement accounts. You can contribute your husbands earned income, though!Because youre technically not making earned income, Im not sure you have any 401k403b options outside of what your husbands work offers. Its kind of like youre a not-working spouse which of course isnt the case in this situation.If your job is a permanent position, it might be worth seeing if they will change you to a W2 employee if youd like the benefits of another retirement account, although that might decrease your take-home pay because of FICA taxes. Otherwise...its something weird about academia that there exist these situations where people literally cant contribute to retirement accounts, although grad students and postdocs dont usually make enough to be concerned. 