How much money do you have invested for college for your kids?
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Anonymous
How are you financing the shortfall? Out of current income and loans? |
Anonymous
| $10,000 so far for our 2 year old. |
Anonymous
| I'd be interested in others' opinions on a related issue - if we were to redirect our monthly 529 savings to mortgage payments, we would pay off our mortgage at approximately the same time our child starts college. That would allow us to use those payments to pay for undergrad from cash flow. Combined with what we currently have in college savings (about $60k, with 13 years before college), we should be in good shape for undergrad and grad school. So - is this a good idea? |
Anonymous
We have 22 K saved for our two year old. We're doing 10K a year for him. This is less than we would like to save, but feels like a reasonable savings based on what we can really afford while still taking care of our retirement and other obligations. If we come up a bit short, he will have to take out loans, etc. If we have a second child, we will save the same for him / her. If we had three (by virtue of having twins or an "oops" or something) all hell will break loose! 
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Anonymous
| You need to look at the tax effect too - since the mortgage interest is deductible. Also do you plan to stay in your house forever? I would stick with saving for college since it seems like so many other things can get in the way between now and then. |
Anonymous
Not if you are making any money on your investments. Time value of money. |
Anonymous
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We have close to fully funded one who has started college (maybe $220k? hard to know since we have already drawn against it). We have about $180k for the one who will be starting in 3 years. The gap is easily covered with current income created by no longer having private school tuition. In fact our education expenses have now gone down because we are using the 529s.
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Anonymous
| I have a 3-year-old. I think I have about $10K saved, maybe a bit more. I wish it was more, but I took on a bigger mortgage for a shorter commute (less time in daycare/preschool) and much better schools. (plus I save 15% for retirement.) Her dad saves too - I think he has a similar amount put aside for her. OP - you sound like you're doing a great job. |
Anonymous
| Have 100K in 529s for our 4 yr old. Also, 10K in Coverdell. |
Anonymous
| we are in bad shape, relative to this crowd. 11k for a 5 year old and 8k for the 3 year old, mostly from grandparent contributions. It's been rough with two daycares, having adequate savings for ourselves, and saving for retirement first, but now that the first one is in kindergarten, we hope to save more because daycare costs have gone down. |
Anonymous
| Nothing allocated for college. Kids = 8, 6. Us = 38, 44. Used to say that our condo would go to kid 1 and that we'd buy more RE for kid 2. Condo will be paid off in 5 years. House in 15. Net worth as of last month $1.2. Need to make a plan. |
Anonymous
| Wow, we're no where near these numbers. About $10K for almost 4 year old, and just starting for 6 month old. Hoping after double daycare payments go away we could direct money that way. |
Anonymous
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Officially-$25 (because that's what you needed to open a 529 account online!)
We have a newborn, and haven't had a chance to sit down and figure out our new budget to assess how much we will put in each month. We have about $2000 in gifts that we need to move over and have been told to expect more for Christmas. I'd like to try and max out the $8000 we can deduct from our state taxes each year at least. |
Anonymous
| DS is 2.5 and we've been putting $1500/mo. into a 529 for the last two years. |
Anonymous
Are you done saving? Or, are you planning to have more kids and spread it around? |