We have some money from friends and family we have to put in a college account. Other than that, no, we just don't have the extra funds right now to do it. I went through the Saving for College website and it says we would have to save over $600/month to be able to cover her college in 18 years. Ridiculous.
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I was just on that website this morning too! My parents want to give some money for her college account for Christmas, but I'm overwhelmed trying to figure out setting up an account.
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We got a upromise credit card... my husband knows all the details of it but it is our attempt to start saving early.
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I set up a savings account for her and whatever money she is gifted by family or friends goes in there. We also get a $100 child care bonus thing from the Government in Canada for the first 5 years of baby's life (I think it's 5 years?!) so that money goes into her account too.
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I think we save 500 a month but will need to adjust it down soon.
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We want to start as early as possible but we'll be setting aside what we can afford rather than trying to meet a specific goal, and just hope he's smart and/or can play athletics
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No! I mean I don't have any little ones yet, but We are still paying on our own student loans. I highly doubt we will save anything/pay for any of our children's schooling.
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We have about $10k so far in LOs college account.
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So I have mixed feelings about this. Obviously it's good to save, but in 35 states in the US, daycare costs more than college tuition. And NO ONE saves for 18 years to pay for daycare. I kind of think that we should save as much as we can in general and leverage tax breaks as much as we can via 529 plans, but past that I would think we will cross that bridge when we come to it. Much of my plan is just to make sure we are on the best possible financial footing we can be as well as leveraging those tax breaks. But my parents paid for my college as they went and had no major problems with it - and they didn't really make that much.
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Yes – LO has two 529 college savings accounts. One has just over 10k in it and is being managed conservatively, and the other one was opened because LO was eligible for$500 if we opened it – that one is being managed aggressively. We contribute a % of our paychecks to each account. Hopefully between the 2, we’ll have a good chunk of her undergrad paid for, but who knows.
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We are in the middle of figuring out what we want to do about that. I don't think our goal is to pay for all of LO's college, because that just isn't feasible, but we'd like to have 10-15K saved up to help him/her out. I think we will start 529 when LO is born, and put all monetary gifts in there + some monthly contribution that will not begin until LO is out of daycare- we just don't have the money to do both!
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We juuuuuust started talking about a 529 account. Somewhere i read that if we put $100 a month into it, we'll have 20K by the time she goes to college! And we could definitely swing more.
DH doesn't want to just pay for all of it, but I'd like to have the funds for at least half for all of our kids. After daycare, we should have a lot more money to contribute. Not to mention when they are IN college, we both should be making enough money to cough up some checks. And maybe my parents will feel generous
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I got some cash from my shower so I put that into an account - our financial adviser said to wait to open a 529 or mutual fund until we had a substantial amount.
That said, I will not save for my child's education at the detriment of my own retirement - You can borrow money for college but not to retire. We will see how much we can save once LO is born and in daycare.
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No... We're still working on how we'll put me through college and pay off student loans. I cannot imagine having an extra $600/mo to just do whatever with
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We opened a 529 when he was born. Grandpa gives money at birthday and Christmas to go into the account. I just went back to work and was on unpaid leave previously, but I hope to contribute once our budget smooths out.
@dagret: agree re: retirement. financial advisors always say to plan for retirement first, then college tuition.
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We're putting money away for the kids, and so are the grandparents. We've never planned on paying everything for college, though, (we expect the kids to chip a good amount, too), so we're just socking away what we can afford at the moment.
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@AprilK: That's a good point! I know the concern for us is that when our kids are in college, we'll be in our mid to late 40s and hoping to retire within the next 20 years. Those college dollars could be going towards retirement funds that can earn a lot of interest. Better to safe for college now (if we can) when retirement is not as much of a concern. At least that's our goal! We're not saving for college right now - no LOs and still trying to get out of debt and save an emergency fund.
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I'd like to open a 529 after LO arrives and either throw a couple grand in at tax time or set up an auto payment into the account each payday. Even if it's only $50 a paycheck, it'll add up over 18 years and a 529 allows tax-free growth if I'm not mistaken.
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DH started a college fund for a future child before we even met! LO now has two 529's, one that each set of grandparents set up and manages and a separate fund that we contribute to, but don't specifically have in his name. DH, his brother, father and grandfather all went to the Naval Academy, so if LO goes there too and doesn't need the college money, we want to be able to use what we're saving his college now for our retirement.
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No. Our poor future-LO won't have a college fund. I'll be paying back my student loans til I'm 50...so...yeah. We will of course try to help out as much as possible when that time comes, but there will not be a specific fund set up from birth or something.
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