How much should you contribute per month to 529 plan?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Am I the only one who breaks out into a cold sweat when I read these threads?

KUDOS to all of you who can afford to save so much for your kids' education. That is very admirable.

But then there's the rest of us. I have 3 kids and we are less than 5 years away from college. We have around $10K for all kids combined at this point. We were not saving monthly until a couple of years ago. We are now saving $300/month. That's total - not per kid. But here's the deal. I am a SAHM. I work part time, but will go back full time when my youngest is in MS. At that point, ALL of my salary will be dumped into their college savings. So, even if I am only making $30K/year at first, that will be $60K by the time our oldest goes to college. In state colleges in our area are around $20/year, including room and board, books, etc. So, this is our plan and we will be fine. Basically, I will be working solely to pay for their college until they all get through. I know...it would be better to let it accumulate gradually so that it could earn interest. Well, sure, but that didn't really pan out for us.

I recently read an article about how so many parents OVERestimate the cost of college. So, they raise their kids thinking that college is not even an option. They know they could never save at least $250,000 for each kid. This is the number we were given when our first child was a baby. I think it's important to note that the PPs who are saving so much are likely planning to send their kids to a private university. And that's great. But not attainable for most of us. Saving for a state college is attainable for a lot more of us. For those who can't pay for state college, their kids will likely qualify for assistance.

Better get crackin' on that plan. What are you waiting for?

[Anonymous]

Everyone's plan is different, as long as you have one, you are in better shape than a lot of people. When we first got married and bought a house we took out a 15-year mortgage. When baby came along a short time later, we didn't have lots of money to put away for college so we put away $166/mo (or $2000 per year) into an ESA plan. We knew it wasn't enough for college, but we also knew that 3 years before she went away for college we'd have no mortgage and could pay for it then.

As it turned out, we ended up moving for a job relocation and pulled a lump sum out of the house and put it into a 529 for her and her siblings. Then my father-in-law died and left us some money so we put another lump sum in each of the kid's 529 plans. We still only put $2000 per year into each of their ESAs.