As of 3 days ago, Stella is now a five month old. Bring on the teething! It’s also a good time to check-in on the ole 529. That is what got us started here afterall.
Today her 529 account closed at $1,904.49. As it’s only been open 4 months, to keep things simple we’ll call that an average of $476/mo we’ve been able to put into the account. As that is quite a bit more than my car payment it feels rather considerable, but in the grand scheme of planning for college, not so much.
Based on our current savings plan we’re on track to be $107,000 short of paying for in-state tuition. Worse yet, the average monthly is skewed a bit as we had some gifts from family that are included in that total. At our current rate of $300/mo we’re investing into the account it will actually be closer to a $140k shortfall – Time to hit up the grandparents.
What’s the plan? I pitched the idea of buying a classic Porsche that would appreciate in value and easily pay for college in 18 years, but that plan was rejected fairly quickly (although it’s not all that crazy). For us it includes finding some additional sources of income to supplement our savings. Rachel now spends an hour or two a day researching vendors and wholesale pricing as we’re in the process of starting a small online store. Our goal is to create a very modest $250-500/mo that we can put towards college. While we’d love to shoot for the stars, this has to be a business that is manageable by a busy full-time mom and a dad who works a good bit more than full-time.
While our plans may not work for everyone, I do recommend getting a good handle on expenses. We are fairly religious users of Mint.com to track our finances and investments. This is a great way to aggregate all accounts into a single system that lets you create goals for college, paying down debts, saving, and investing. Before we started using it we mainly flew by the seat of our pants with our finances. Having our financial status in our face (we do try to go at least once a week) has been a great way to keep our spending in check and our savings on target.
Note – That’s not an advertisement. I just find it to be a really great product… which also happens to be free.
-Matt
