Have you started a college fund for your LO(s)?
If so, how old was your LO when did you started it?
If not, will you?
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I feel like these days, you need an elementary school fund! Just paying for day care and preschool is way more than I had expected!!
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We'll start a fund for each of our kids that can be used for college if they so choose. We won't require college though..it's a touchy subject for my husband since he didn't go to college and he feels like he's constantly looked down upon or judged by others even though he has an excellent job with great benefits and super retirement. He feels like he kinda got screwed by his parents since they paid for his sister's college but he got nothing because he chose a different route. We won't just give it to the kids to do whatever they want to with but if they choose a route that doesn't involve college we'll give it to them for something like buying a house.
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We haven't started any college specific fund. I spoke to my financial planner who didn't particularly recommend it. He said any ole savings account works just as well. We have investments that we plan to cash out on to pay for college when the time comes.
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One thing that Hubs and I decided on quite a while ago is that any birthday/Christmas/etc monies our kiddos receive will be split between a college fund and fun money. This way we can help save for them and they'll still be able to buy what they want. When they are really little we'll split the money between college and us getting them toys or whatever.
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As soon as we got his social security card we opened him a bank account. For a 6 month old he already has quite a nice nest egg! We've put in all the money he has been given as gifts and some money automatically goes from our checking to his savings once a month. We are hoping it will be used for his college or something equally important.
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We have set up a savings account for our son, but it's not necessarily for college. I don't believe that we should provide all of the money necessary for college, I had loans and I think it provides excellent money management skills in having some ownership in your education. If you know you have to pay it back, I really think you have more incentive to do well in school, find a job and pay back that loan.
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We're planning on starting a college fund for our children when we have them. We probably won't be able to save enough to pay for everything, but any little bit will help, so that's my goal. I'm guessing that I'll be so busy in the beginning, that I probably won't get it set up right away, but my goal is to have them set up before my kids are five.
I do agree with @Looch though, that I don't think we need to provide all the money for college. Especially if our children decide to go out of state. Hubs and I both had loans and there's nothing wrong with that!
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i think we'll have to start one as soon as they're born. my husband wants to get them financially emancipated so they can get school loans. (i don't think we'll be able to qualify for financial aid).
i'm really dreading how high college tuition will be when my kids get to college. it'll be like buying a house! not a cheap one too!
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We don't have a college fund, per se. But the day I found out I was pregnant, I opened up an account and put $200/month in there for baby-related purchases. Now that the LO is here, we opened up an account under her name, put the remaining $ in her account, and put her child benefit cheques in there, as well. The hubs and I plan to pay for our children's tuition just as our parents did for us.
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I think starting sooner than later is better, but ideally getting rid of debt should be the first priority. Then when that's done you can double amounts per month to catch up on lost time.
I would follow Dave Ramsey's baby steps. I'm on step 2 and luckily in Canada we don't have to spend clearly as much as the US peeps for schooling. If all my life including college it cost me 10K thats generous. Obviously University is more expensive but 1/10 of what it costs you.
I would read up on it here : http://www.daveramsey.com/new/baby-step-5/
I'm sure there are other financial advisors, I just don't really know much about the subject seeing it doesn't really apply to me.
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Thanks for that link, @Blushink! What a great piece of information!
We've done some of these, but are definitely not going in order, haha. Definitely need to do 2! Though our debt has such a low interest rate, it hasn't been a high priority for us, but maybe we should make it one.
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@blushink I
Dave Ramsey! 
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yep! as soon as em got a social security number, we opened an account for her. we put all holiday/birthday money she gets into it plus we put money each month into it. slowly but surely it's growing!
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Yep, as soon as we conceive we will start a fund. I also signed up for Upromise a while back that I'll be avidly keeping track of from now on.
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We are planning on saving for our child's college - as soon as they are born. If we are given any money for them, that will go to the account, as well. I read an article on USAA the other day that to save properly for your child's schooling, you will need to save $400/mo from the time they are born until they are 18. That is to plan for more ridiculous inflation like we have had in the past 10 years. We won't be able to save that much until they're out of daycare but we'll save something and get it going to give them a head start in life.
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Oh yeah, I suggest always taking Dave Ramsey's %'s with a grain of salt. There hasn't been a year in the past 5 that have lived up to his percentages. I'm not knocking the guy - I used his plan to get out of debt (all I have left is the house) but don't bet on those percentages to make up the difference for the kid's college fund.
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@JBhops - ya I don't take his advice all the time but the fundamentals are there. Right now it's about getting rid of debt but as soon as Mavi got a social security number I opened up an account and deposit money in there when I can. Nothing big but more than I had when I was young for sure.
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We plan on opening savings accounts for each of our future children and saving whatever money we can for them, in addition to dropping in Grandma money. We already drop our own Grandma money into our "Down Payment on a House" fund and its something we want to teach our kids anyway.
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I'm a Dave Ramsey follower too. I'm hoping that by the time we have a baby, we'll be on the Baby Step that tells you to start a college fund!
Dave Ramsey! 
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