How much do you put away per month into your 529 plan? I feel like there should be a relatively standard formula, given the projected cost of a college education, but I can't find one.
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We don't have a 529 set up, we are working on our retirement first off, I guess that is just a bigger concern of ours at the moment
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$300 a month, plus we seeded it with a big chunk to get things started. Our financial advisor said if we put $500 a month for 18 years at an 8 percent rate of return, we could *probably* fund 4 years at a state school. So daunting/depressing! I feel like something's gotta give since the cost of higher education is becoming unsustainable, but for now we're just doing as much as we can and hopefully it'll be enough.
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@Bao: We also got set up with our retirement accounts first. But now we contribute 22% of our salary to retirement, so we figured we'd use the 529 mechanism as well. We just have to get our oldest to Junior year and then we can use our retirement funds for education as well (thanks to my age when we had babies!)
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@hummusgirl: Really?! Even with the rule of 7's? Our financial adviser suggested $200/month for each girl would put us in a good spot... but then again we get half off tuition at the local University.
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@Mrs. Jacks: Insane right? I think the $500 figure was for everything - tuition, books, room and board, spending money, etc. I'm counting on the kid(s) to contribute in some way! There are so many variables to plan for, I'm sure $200 would be fine especially at half off!
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@hummusgirl: I just don't know. I wish there was a set of formulas we could use to be sure! We're hoping that they don't choose Ivys for undergrad. They can go where ever they want for grad school
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There are calculators out there; here's one: http://www.savingforcollege.com/college-savings-calculator/
After the main page where you input your child's age, the next page will let you manipulate factors like current cost of the college (and adjust for inflation), how much $ you already have socked away, what % of their college costs you are hoping to cover, etc.
We put $200/month right now into her 529's, and we started with about $13k as the initial deposit into her accounts. Her grandparents also have pledged to deposit at least $2k a year into her college fund. We probably still won't be able to fully cover college
depressing.
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@yoursilverlining: Yikes! Thank you, but that hurt more than I thought it would! In order to pay everything for both girls, we would need to be putting over $1,000/month into these plans. Shocking!
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We are talking about putting $200/month in. Every little bit, right?
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We don't put in monthly. We put $10k a year in once DH gets his YE bonus.
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@Mrs. Jacks: I know, sorry friend!
I thought we were in a good position with the initial contribution, monthly and grandparents; and then to see we're still pretty far off target is a little deflating. But, I'd rather know now, even if I can't do much to change it - every little bit helps.
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We are just looking into this now. That calculator is good to know. How old do you have to be to take out of an IRA without a tax hit? We have my 401k, but DH has an IRA we were planning on using for college funds, in addition to a 529 plan.
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@ninja: I think you can take out of 401K without penalty for things like college at age 59.5, if I'm remembering correctly.
Huge benefit of being an old mama!
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Yikes, this thread is depressing. We really need to open one, but I haven't even looked into how to get one yet.
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@mrskc: It's really very easy. Each state has one and you can use other states as well. Luckily, my state's has one of the best ratings in the country, so we just used it.
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@Mrs. Jacks: thanks! We'll definitely be able to use DH's IRA if the rules are the same
(the benefit of having an older DH!)
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We can write off $2500 per child on our state taxes, so we are putting in $208 per month. For now we can afford it, when we have more than one child we may have to make some changes... and I don't think $2500 per year for 18 years will cover everything. My education cost about $100K, and that was 10 yrs ago.
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In Canada we have RESP's for kids' education. I'm not 100% sure how it all works, but we contribute about 100$ a month, LO's grandparents give him 1k every year for his birthday into his RESP's, and since we are low income, the government matches about 40% right now. It will get lower as our income gets higher. Not complaining, though!
University is cheaper out of pocket in Canada (taxes cover a great deal) and I hope the kids are able to score some scholarships!
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DS is still in my belly, but we plan on contributing about $200-$300 a month into a 529 when the time comes. I'm hoping that we will eventually be in a financial situation where we can up that amount!
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We are planning to contribute ~$50 per month and then around $1500 after we receive our tax refund each year.
I graduated in 2010 with an accounting degree (which is 150 credit hours if you plan to sit for the CPA exam). My entire college education cost less than $20k. I graduated from a prestigious private Catholic university.
That being said, I did two years at a junior college and got scholarships. I also didn't live on campus but for one semester. I'm hoping LO will qualify for scholarships and work through college and consider not living on campus, as well as possibly going the junior college route.
If not, he's picking up the tab for the difference through student loans. We're going to help as much as possible but we're not sacrificing our financial future so he can party in the dorms.
depressing.
I thought we were in a good position with the initial contribution, monthly and grandparents; and then to see we're still pretty far off target is a little deflating. But, I'd rather know now, even if I can't do much to change it - every little bit helps.
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