Money Matters
shana+chris
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
College fund
What is the best way to save towards a child's college fund? My husband and I can currently only afford $30/week towards our daughters college fund (we also contribute any birthday or holiday gifts). We currently are saving in a standard savings account. I'm now wondering if this is the best option for us. Is it best to continue this and buy CDs? Invest in a 529 instead? My only concern is that if she doesn't go to college or if college were paid for (DH has been doing some teaching as an adjunct and may peruse this full time eventually and our daughter could potentially attend college for free). Would the investments be lost if its in another form of a "college" fund? I'm obviously not well educated on this matter so please offer some advice! Thank you:)
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Re: College fund
For us personally, we plan to max out the Roth IRA for our retirement savings, and then contribute to a 529 for education on top of that. If our child/ren don't use the 529 plan, it can be transferred to another blood relative (including our grandchildren someday). As I understand it, the principal can also be taken out without penalty, just not the earnings.
We are just starting TTC, so we are currently contributing $150/mo to the 529 plan. I have it invested aggressively in mutual funds. We plan to up that to $200/mo when we conceive, and ultimately I have worked out that $300-400/mo will cover the cost of education for two children (that means upping the contribution when #2 comes along). We will need to contribute more for #3, if that happens. However, we plan to send our children to a two-year community college before attending a four-year state university for the remaining two. We also already have $13,000 in the 529 plan because I've been saving an average of $75/mo for the past ten years, so YMMV.
The best way to figure out how much you'll need is to use a 529 or college savings estimator to get an idea of what kind of contributions will help you meet your goals. It will depend on the type of education you plan to offer your kids. A four-year private university with tuition upwards of $30,000/year will cost a lot more than our plan--which is $10,000/year for the community college and $15,000/year for the state university.