Why couldn’t we have free universities here, sheesh.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12th grade-40,000
9th-40,000

Not putting in any more.

Why not?

Because if I can fund undergrad fully out of pocket, that's my goal. Then, they can get 35k of that rolled into a Roth IRA per Secure Act 2.0. That means school cost is a factor in the final decision this spring.

I don't make the amount of money some people on here make, incredible I'm seeing some have multiple children with over 150k each, and the one with five kids is rolling with one kid has over 300k! There are some really fortunate and loaded people on here. What do you all do for a living? It's amazing whatever it is.

Some of these eye popping amounts are the result of contributions from other family members. If parents and each set of grandparents contribute 8k a year for 6 years, that's 150k before any returns when a kid is in K. And for UMC or wealthy families, that's not really that much. So you can get the 529s going early and then stop contributing, or lower contributions, and still wind up over funded and rolling these 529s over.

Very fortunate, that makes sense, generational wealth. Likely some very high income on here as well though, law partners or the like. My kids’ grandparents were and are broke. We’re getting some old GI Joe dolls passed to us, in-laws made sure we knew, lol.

But anyway, I’m hopeful that kids will get some merit aid, and we can maybe work on that generational wealth thing and push some of their 529 into a Roth. We make a little too much at combined dual income now 170k pre-tax most we’ve ever had fortunate we had a lot of opportunities moving here to DMV. But then, there’s our outrageous HCOL housing, so it doesn’t feel like it goes too far.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need to start. Have 1000 in an interest bearing savings account. How much are you adding per month? We are very much scraping by.

How about $100 a month? Can you manage that? By starting with some amount (maybe $2000?) then adding $208/month (state tax deduction of $2500/yr) all in the equity fund, my kid now has close to $200,000. If you can’t do $100/month, how about $50?

Single mom here...I do $75/month for each of my 16YOs (twins). My DD had to go to a special school for a year so I took $10k out of the 529 to help cover it so she has about $16k and my DS has about $26k. Not enough and am very worried!

Anonymous wrote:7th grader: $53k
5th grader: $47k

How much would you all estimate should be saved in a 529 to pay in full for OOS undergraduate? 200k?

I bet you can do the math on this one. $200k per kid would be $50k/yr. OOS public varies widely. I've seen CURRENTLY $35K for regional universities in South and Midwest to $85K for Michigan. Assuming costs by the time your kids enter college will exceed inflation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12th grade-40,000
9th-40,000

Not putting in any more.

Why not?

Because if I can fund undergrad fully out of pocket, that's my goal. Then, they can get 35k of that rolled into a Roth IRA per Secure Act 2.0. That means school cost is a factor in the final decision this spring.

I don't make the amount of money some people on here make, incredible I'm seeing some have multiple children with over 150k each, and the one with five kids is rolling with one kid has over 300k! There are some really fortunate and loaded people on here. What do you all do for a living? It's amazing whatever it is.

Some of these eye popping amounts are the result of contributions from other family members. If parents and each set of grandparents contribute 8k a year for 6 years, that's 150k before any returns when a kid is in K. And for UMC or wealthy families, that's not really that much. So you can get the 529s going early and then stop contributing, or lower contributions, and still wind up over funded and rolling these 529s over.

Or save the entirety of the 529 for future generations.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:13-year-old: $350k (stopped contributions, moved to conservative allocation)
6-year-old: $164k (100% in a broad index fund)

Doesn’t look like you know what you’re doing. $350K is what you should have for a 17-year-old, maximum. You obviously over contributed, which is essentially a gross miscalculation and sunk cost.

They have a 6 yo whom they can transfer any "excess". So as long as they stop contributing to the 6yo account soon, this isn't an issue.

Yes, I'm the PP. DH and I both went to schools that now cost ~ $90k per year, plus we both have graduate-level degrees, so I don't think we're overshooting with $350k in a 529 plan for the 13-year-old. I've seen other posters on here with more. Also, one of our kids thinks they want to go to med school.

58K for a 10th grader.

7th grader: $53k
5th grader: $47k

How much would you all estimate should be saved in a 529 to pay in full for OOS undergraduate? 200k?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12th grade-40,000
9th-40,000

Not putting in any more.

Why not?

Because if I can fund undergrad fully out of pocket, that's my goal. Then, they can get 35k of that rolled into a Roth IRA per Secure Act 2.0. That means school cost is a factor in the final decision this spring.

I don't make the amount of money some people on here make, incredible I'm seeing some have multiple children with over 150k each, and the one with five kids is rolling with one kid has over 300k! There are some really fortunate and loaded people on here. What do you all do for a living? It's amazing whatever it is.

Some of these eye popping amounts are the result of contributions from other family members. If parents and each set of grandparents contribute 8k a year for 6 years, that's 150k before any returns when a kid is in K. And for UMC or wealthy families, that's not really that much. So you can get the 529s going early and then stop contributing, or lower contributions, and still wind up over funded and rolling these 529s over.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12th grade-40,000
9th-40,000

Not putting in any more.

Why not?

Because if I can fund undergrad fully out of pocket, that's my goal. Then, they can get 35k of that rolled into a Roth IRA per Secure Act 2.0. That means school cost is a factor in the final decision this spring.

I don't make the amount of money some people on here make, incredible I'm seeing some have multiple children with over 150k each, and the one with five kids is rolling with one kid has over 300k! There are some really fortunate and loaded people on here. What do you all do for a living? It's amazing whatever it is.

No kidding! My kids went Catholic school for elementary and I was amazed by the 5-6 kid families who could cover private high school and then private college for all of those kids! We left before high school because we knew it would prevent us from saving enough for college. And I'll add most didn't even consider public college- like it was a dirty word. We don't even live in a fancy area. Where do people get this $??

HHI of $400K before bonus. We live on the $400K typically and any bonus gets saved in some manner.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:13-year-old: $350k (stopped contributions, moved to conservative allocation)
6-year-old: $164k (100% in a broad index fund)

Doesn’t look like you know what you’re doing. $350K is what you should have for a 17-year-old, maximum. You obviously over contributed, which is essentially a gross miscalculation and sunk cost.

They have a 6 yo whom they can transfer any "excess". So as long as they stop contributing to the 6yo account soon, this isn't an issue.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12th grade-40,000
9th-40,000

Not putting in any more.

Why not?

Because if I can fund undergrad fully out of pocket, that's my goal. Then, they can get 35k of that rolled into a Roth IRA per Secure Act 2.0. That means school cost is a factor in the final decision this spring.

I don't make the amount of money some people on here make, incredible I'm seeing some have multiple children with over 150k each, and the one with five kids is rolling with one kid has over 300k! There are some really fortunate and loaded people on here. What do you all do for a living? It's amazing whatever it is.

No kidding! My kids went Catholic school for elementary and I was amazed by the 5-6 kid families who could cover private high school and then private college for all of those kids! We left before high school because we knew it would prevent us from saving enough for college. And I'll add most didn't even consider public college- like it was a dirty word. We don't even live in a fancy area. Where do people get this $??

It's generational wealth. Even if they are very high income, most people will stop at 3-4 kids if they don't have inherited money and want to make sure they can afford private schools plus probably generous cash gifts to help buy first homes, weddings, grandkids. Even big law partners and similar have budgets.

People who just keep having kids with no concern as to affording to maintain their lifestyle have other money sources, likely trusts that take a lot of the pressure off and allow them to invest most of their actual income.

I have a 2nd grader and we only have a little over 4k in the 529. We debated starting one at all because we have other funding sources (grandparents on both sides have committed generous amounts plus with only one kid and a paid off house, we can cash flow quite a bit). But we finally decided to take advantage of the tax advantages and will fund up to tax deduction amount for the next 5 years and then quit. Like a PP, we figure 35k can be rolled into a Roth so funding up to that amount at least makes a lot of sense. Beyond that it's just kind of gravy for us.

I get why pe

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12th grade-40,000
9th-40,000

Not putting in any more.

Why not?

Because if I can fund undergrad fully out of pocket, that's my goal. Then, they can get 35k of that rolled into a Roth IRA per Secure Act 2.0. That means school cost is a factor in the final decision this spring.

I don't make the amount of money some people on here make, incredible I'm seeing some have multiple children with over 150k each, and the one with five kids is rolling with one kid has over 300k! There are some really fortunate and loaded people on here. What do you all do for a living? It's amazing whatever it is.

No kidding! My kids went Catholic school for elementary and I was amazed by the 5-6 kid families who could cover private high school and then private college for all of those kids! We left before high school because we knew it would prevent us from saving enough for college. And I'll add most didn't even consider public college- like it was a dirty word. We don't even live in a fancy area. Where do people get this $??

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12th grade-40,000
9th-40,000

Not putting in any more.

Why not?

Because if I can fund undergrad fully out of pocket, that's my goal. Then, they can get 35k of that rolled into a Roth IRA per Secure Act 2.0. That means school cost is a factor in the final decision this spring.

I don't make the amount of money some people on here make, incredible I'm seeing some have multiple children with over 150k each, and the one with five kids is rolling with one kid has over 300k! There are some really fortunate and loaded people on here. What do you all do for a living? It's amazing whatever it is.