We do $50/month per kid. Well, DD is only 3 months old and we need to set up her 529 stil. But we will do the same for her once it's set up. We also put any random xmas, bday, gift money into their accounts.
We do minimum $100 a month and any other monetary gifts through out the year. DH and I have a quasi plan to pay for college for ds and a future 2nd child, if we have one. The goal is to save enough to fund ds's first 2 years then hopefully have the house paid off and use that money to fund the 2nd two years and future child's 4 years.
We don't save monthly, we put in lump sums like $500-$1000 here and there. I guess we try to put in $3000/yr. DH's grandmother started our college fund w/$60K (we invest tat privately, not 529), which was super generous of her.
Post by steamboat185 on Dec 3, 2015 16:05:02 GMT -5
200 a month currently. The plan is increase that by $50 per month per year. We also throw a bit extra in there at tax time and if DD gets extra cash. We want to cover instate college costs.
No clue what the target is. We are just going to see how it unfolds. We plan to help with college, maybe pay in full, but not at the expense of our own financial stability.
This is where we are at, but we are really hoping to pay in full.
$0. My dad set up 529s for each grandkid as soon as they were born. He fully funds them yearly and has let me know that he intends to cover 100% of their college expenses. We're gambling on that being true.
Not much. The first to go to college will use H's GI Bill. In addition to that, my ILs save a boatload of money in 529s for all of them. Since they're maxing 529s for all three, but we only need to bankroll two, I'm assuming that will cover almost all of it.
We don't save anything for college. We are broke right now. My hope is that when they are in college, we can fund it then. I do also plan to encourage 2 years at the local CC and finishing at a state 4 year. I will allow them to live at home rent-free and pay for the CC if they take that route.
I answered $401-$500. We have $250 per month built into our budget, then I add lump sums throughout the year to get to $5k annual contribution. So averages out to $400+ per month. DH thinks I'm insane to be saving that much, but whatever, he doesn't manage the finances!
Post by sillygoosegirl on Dec 3, 2015 16:17:55 GMT -5
Nothing explicitly, but we are saving 27% of our household income for retirement right now (and have always saved around this much or more), so I'm pretty confident in our ability to pay for college out of out general investments and Roth IRAs. We'd like to cover around 80% of the cost or so. We might move some of our investments to a 529 before the end of the year, been meaning to research the details.
1k a month per kid. It's invested and it'll cover whatever it covers and then we'll pull the rest out of general savings. It's really important to me to pay for their educations.
We put a large lump sum (to us) into a 529 when she was 7 months old. FIL randomly deposits a couple hundred every now and then. When I get a full time job we'll deposit a monthly amount.
In playing around with calculators, you "need" to save roughly $1,500/month per child from birth to fully pay for a newborn's college education at a top private school ($55K/year - and we are seeing prices north of $60K these days)
Of course, there are other sources of both income and wealth to consider and all kind of other factors that play into this, but the costs truly are staggering.
Right now $35 a month; it will be $40 starting next month. My mom saves $100/month for him, but it is in a separate account. Not to be morbid, but we assume she will die before he goes to college (she is 79, he is 6) - at that point we will add that to his 529.
I will bump our contributions up a little bit each year, but DH is going back to school full-time and when he graduates he will have a student loan payment on top of what I already have - I am never going to be able to put a ton of money into college savings for DS. At least he will have something, I guess.
My parents gave us a generous gift when DD was born to start off her fund. We add to it in lumps as we can, but do not have a monthly schedule (we are like this with our ROTHs too, which we always fund in full by the end of the year). We are probably moving soon, but if we don't, our house should be paid off before DD goes to college, so we're hoping that will help free up some money to help put her through. If we move, I hope we can afford a house on a 15 year mortgage, but I'm not sure that will be possible. One benefit of moving is that my H's new university would offer a very good tuition reimbursement plan to help pay a portion of a child's tuition (anywhere, not just at that university).
Ditto everyone who is contributing nothing right now due to high daycare costs. We do put money in a savings account when we get birthday/Christmas money, but that's it for now. Our plan is to hopefully keep "paying daycare" once they're both out but just into college savings.
So far, nothing. But, we have some money set aside to get a fund started for each of them. We will probably put in a lump sum a couple times a year. We'll be able to increase when we are not paying for a nanny.
Post by fortnightlily on Dec 3, 2015 16:43:51 GMT -5
We're not saving monthly. The first two years of DS's life we've taken $2500 from our tax refund and dumped it in our state 529, which is the max to get the tax benefit
However, my parents have also contributed to a 529 they opened for him.
^ you have to wonder at what point it is really worth it too. Even if you do have the money. Is any school, even the super elite ones, really going to be worth 90k/yr or 100/yr? Idk. But at that point we will have to question whether it might be better to do public for under grad and use the rest of the money for grad school, etc.
Saving for college .com estimates that costs will increase 4% per year (down from an avg of 6%). Sound accurate to you?
$0. As a single income household we only have money for so many things. We just don't have money for college right now. We're trying to not cut our modest retirement contributions. As someone once said "kids can take out loans for college, I can't take out loans for retirement." We hope to start contributing to a college fund once the kids are in public school.
We didn't save monthly this year, but I am putting in $2,400 from bonuses if they come through. I'd like to do $200/month on top of the $50/month my ILs are doing. I know it won't cover it all, but we're behind on retirement.
We had been doing a little over $300/month into DD1's 529 ($4K/year is the maximum on which you can get a tax break in Virginia). Now that we are paying for two in daycare, I am not sure that will be sustainable.