Anonymous wrote:Regarding your kids college savings. Don't dump $40K or some big amount into the 529. Your state tax benefit from 529 investments has a cap/carryover restrictions. So once you've put enough in to max out the state tax benefit (which it sounds like you are already doing even without this $) there is no reason to put more into that investment vehicle. Plus you can't pull the $ out without penalty should you decide you need it for some unplanned or large unforeseen expense - or your child gets a college scholarship etc. You want to maximize your tax benefit, but keep some flexibility with how the fund could be accessed if need be. What our advisor told us is to open VA 529 accounts for your kids and max out the tax benefit, but then set up separate mutual fund account(s) for additional college savings. You can probably get better returns on the $ in mutual funds (given the higher number of brokerages/funds to choose from) than the 529 offers anyway. So yeah, get the state tax credit, but everything over the top goes into mutual funds.
Anonymous wrote:Regarding your kids college savings. Don't dump $40K or some big amount into the 529. Your state tax benefit from 529 investments has a cap/carryover restrictions. So once you've put enough in to max out the state tax benefit (which it sounds like you are already doing even without this $) there is no reason to put more into that investment vehicle. Plus you can't pull the $ out without penalty should you decide you need it for some unplanned or large unforeseen expense - or your child gets a college scholarship etc. You want to maximize your tax benefit, but keep some flexibility with how the fund could be accessed if need be. What our advisor told us is to open VA 529 accounts for your kids and max out the tax benefit, but then set up separate mutual fund account(s) for additional college savings. You can probably get better returns on the $ in mutual funds (given the higher number of brokerages/funds to choose from) than the 529 offers anyway. So yeah, get the state tax credit, but everything over the top goes into mutual funds.
Anonymous wrote:Keep it in a separate account so it remains your asset due to inheritance rather than a marital asset. If you put it into a joint asset whether a car etc or a bank account it is no longer your asset, it is a marital asset.
Anonymous wrote:I recently inherited $100k in cash from the sale of a family property. DH and I both work HHI approx $200k. We don’t have any debt outside of a monthly car payment which is no interest and our mortgage (school loans, cc all paid off). We contribute the max to 401k and contribute $8k per year to our DS 529. We are not super wealthy but feel like we can afford what we need / want within reason. We have some additional investments besides retirement and enough $ in an emergency fund. So...the question is what would you do with extra money? Invest? Pay off car? Pay down mortgage?
Anonymous wrote:40k to the 529; 40k to non-retirement savings/investment; $20k to spend, maybe on a big vacation.
Anonymous wrote:We are the same as you, but no car note. We upped our 529 contributions to $1k per kid per month and parked the rest in our Vanguard account.