Anonymous wrote:180 income: $6k/yr in oldest (now in 7th), $3600/yr in middle (now in 3rd grade), $3000/yr in youngest (now in 1st grade).

I'd like to start throwing more towards the oldest since we got a late start with hers, but it's tough while trying to max out retirement and put something away for vacations and home improvements. Oh yeah - can't forget the kids' expenses!

Bless you for writing. We save 1200 for the younger kid, 2000 for the elder. We are a two-income family making 150k a year and saving like mad for retirement. You and we are much closer to the norm for sure. Good for us for doing it even though it hurts!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$25 a month for my two year old. Go ahead and laugh. $200K HHI, in non-profit and govt with my own law school loans I'm still paying. We save more for retirement, and will help DD as much as we can.

Totally not laughing. That's better than we did when our kids were young.

We're in the same boat, fluctuate from $25-$50 per month, per kid. HHI only about 160k, 3 kids, oldest is 6. When student loans are paid off (another 1 1/2 years) all that $ goes to college fund. We aim to throw the bulk of future raises into college funds as best we can. It won't cover 100% but we'll do as much as we can. In our cases, parents had nothing to give for college, so I feel at least this is better than nothing.

Grandma died and we recieved a modest 150k insurance pay out.

$150k is not a modest amount.

$4k/year/kid. 2 kids. I don't want to tie up more money in 529s, so just do enough to get the full state tax benefit. We save in other taxable accounts in addition.

To answer another question, each child also has a savings account where we put any money gifted to them by various relatives. We intend for that to be their spending money when they go to college.

Grandma died and we recieved a modest 150k insurance pay out. Put ~70k in each kids VA prepaid and are done with it. Left over 10K, went out and bought a pop-up and we camp nearly every weekend we can.

My wife and I do $100 each for our daughter so it'll come out to $2,400 per year. I personally do more to get the $2,500 deduction from Maryland and I'd also rather front load it because of the time value of money. However, I work in higher education and plan to work at a school like Georgetown or Johns Hopkins to get their dependent benefit. Georgetown will give you up to 67% of Georgetown's tuition to go to any school anywhere while JHU will give you up to 50% of their tuition.

Georgetown's current tuition is $50,000 so if your kid were enrolled now they'd receive a $33,500 payment each year in undergrad.
Johns Hopkins' current tuition is $50,000 so if your kid were enrolled now they'd receive a $25,000 payment each year in undergrad.

I hope those schools keep those same benefits (or don't alter them too much) so we can take advantage of them, too.

$16k - kid 1
$10k - kid 2

Started recently with a goal of at least $2,500-5k to get the Maryland tax credit, paltry that it is. I'm surprised at so many high numbers for children that still require pricey childcare.

$2400 per year per kid.

We do $2K per year per kid (3 kids) and have since they were born. We also did a lump sum for each of them when we sold our house (60K each).

Anonymous wrote:I put in 1000 per year with 2 kids. Single mom. Income of 77k. I think its important to see figures like mine too too because even lower middle class people can save a bit here and there. I am more the norm than 99 percent of replies on this board.

Same family makeup, but I have one kid on that same salary. I put in $1500/year currently. I've done $50/month and $450/month when I had it. We're definitely the norm.

Anonymous wrote:So any money grandparents give goes to 529? Do ppl still set up regular savings account for their kids?

We have a checking but pulled the money out for the 529. Our grandparents suck and are too selfish to give. My grandparents were really generous and helped a lot. If we do get money, it all gets put away.

So any money grandparents give goes to 529? Do ppl still set up regular savings account for their kids?

$6k per year per kid (2 kids) plus any monetary gifts grandparents happen to give, which is usually a few hundred per child on their birthday. Wish we could do more but it's a stretch for us to do this much. And it's all a crap shoot anyway -- if tuition rates keep going up at the same pace we might as well put in nothing because we still wouldn't be able to cover in-state tuition. If the rates level off, we have a shot at covering in-state tuition and figure if it's out of state, we can help more at that time.

About $1000/yr for my 3yo.

HHI is about $180K and she's in daycare full time. I figure we can up contributions once she's in public elementary school.