Six Figures Under

Personal Finance Made Public

  • About
    • Our Story of Paying Off Six Figures of Debt
    • We’re Debt Free!
    • Contact
    • Favorites
    • Guest Posting
  • FRUGAL LIVING
    • at HOME
    • FRUGAL FOOD
      • cooking from SCRATCH
      • growing & PRESERVING
      • Grocery Shoppping
      • Food Storage
      • other ways to SAVE on food
      • Quarantine Food Storage Challenge
    • with KIDS
    • SPENDING wisely
    • NO-SPEND month
    • Feats Flops & Funnies
    • ATTITUDE is everything
    • Holidays
  • FINANCES
    • Budgeting
    • Guide to Getting a Month Ahead Financially
    • Our Financial Situation
    • Personal Finance Made PUBLIC
    • Financial Safety Nets Series
  • DEBT
    • Smash Debt GUIDE
    • Getting STARTED
    • MOTIVATION
    • SPECIFIC Situations
    • Debt Smash-athon
    • Staying ON TRACK
    • OUR Repayment Updates
  • EARNING EXTRA
    • Start a BLOG
    • More on BLOGGING
    • Earning on ETSY Series
    • Earn Gift Cards with Swagbucks
    • AIRBNB Hosting
    • OTHER Ways to Earn Extra
  • Shop
You are here: Home / FINANCES & BUDGETING / National 529 Day– Get $50 When You Start a 529 College Savings Plan

National 529 Day– Get $50 When You Start a 529 College Savings Plan

May 26, 2015 by Stephanie 9 Comments

In honor of National 529 Day, ScholarShare will match a $50 opening deposit for new 529 plan accounts.  Come learn about and start a 529 college savings plan for your children today!

Math nerds celebrate Pi Day (3.14).  Personal Finance nerds celebrate National 529 Day (5-29)!

What?  You didn’t know that was a thing?

Okay, so neither did I until I was invited to be a blog ambassador for ScholarShare, California’s 529 College Savings Plan.  I spent a day in Los Angeles learning all about 529 college savings plans and I’m excited to share what I learned with you over the next few months.

Today we’ll talk about the basics of 529 college savings plans.   If you decide to start a plan, you can take advantage of ScholarShare’s $50 bonus program offered for just 24 hours on 5-29 (this Friday).

What is a 529 anyway?

Just like a 401K, a 529 gets its name from its section in the tax code.  A 529 is an investment vehicle specifically for college savings.  Money from a 529 plan can be used for higher education expenses such as tuition, books, and even eligible housing costs.  The funds can be used for a four-year college and graduate or post-graduate work, but also for many community colleges, technical colleges, and professional schools.

The major benefit of putting money into a 529 is that you pay no federal income tax on the earnings when you withdraw the money for qualified higher education expenses.  A less calculable benefit, but no less important in my opinion, is that you can decide once to begin saving, and then put the savings on autopilot so that your college saving funds grow without your having to make an affirmative choice to contribute each month.

Most states sponsor a 529 plan.  Each plan is different.  Do your research and decide on the plan that you want for your family.  For most state plans, your state of residence does not matter.  You could live in Ohio, have California’s 529 Plan, and go to college in Utah.

What is ScholarShare?

The ScholarShare College Savings Plan is offered by the State of California.  California sponsors a 529 program because they have an interest in helping and encouraging families to save for the expenses of higher education.  The plan is managered by TIAA-CREF Tuition Financing, Inc.

ScholarShare offers 19 investment portfolios that give account holders many options to choose from. Depending on your risk tolerance and savings goals, you can choose from age-based, multi-fund, single-fund and principle plus interest investment portfolios.  Some are actively managed and some are passive.

You don’t have to be a California resident or have a student that plans to attend college in California to have a ScholarShare 529 plan.  Any US citizen or resident with a valid Social Security Number or Taxpayer ID can open a new account.  The minimum deposit to open an account is just $25.

ScholarShare has no annual account maintenance fees.  The annual asset-based fee is low, lower even than our mutual fund asset-based fees.  Since the plan is direct sold (as opposed to advisor sold), you don’t have additional fees.

ScholarShare 529 Matching Promotion

On Friday (5-29), in honor of National 529 Day, ScholarShare is having a “You Start It, We Match It” campaign.  For May 29th only (from 12:01 am to 11:59 pm Pacific time), ScholarShare will match a $50 opening deposit.  In order to qualify to receive the $50 matching deposit, you must:

a) Open a new ScholarShare College Savings Plan with an initial deposit of at least $50 (to be contributed and invested at the time the new account is opened)

b) Enroll in the automatic contribution plan (ACP) for the new account with at least a $25 contribution per month

You can open a new ScholarShare Plan account and get the $50 matching deposit for each new beneficiary.  If you have three kids, you can open an account for each of them.  Of course that means that you’ll also have to commit to a total of $75 per month in automatic investments.

The matching deposit of $50 will be made to the eligible ScholarShare 529 account on or before 11:59 p.m. PT on Dec. 15, 2015. There is a limit of one matching deposit per new ScholarShare account opened for a new beneficiary.

We already have one ScholarShare 529 College Savings Plan for our oldest (she’s 7), but on National 529 Day, we’ll open accounts for our other three.

How about you?

  • Did any of you younger readers use a 529 when you went to college (529 plans started in 1996)?
  • Have you started saving for your children’s college education yet?

Note: I have teamed up with ScholarShare to spread the word about the 529 college savings plan.  I will be compensated for my efforts.  The content and opinions in this post are all my own.

Filed Under: FINANCES & BUDGETING

« Benefits of Blogging for Accountability (…and why I started blogging)
Taxi-phobia: How I Learned to Love Uber »

Comments

  1. Jayleen @ How Do The Jones Do It says

    May 28, 2015 at 9:16 am

    I wish we had started this years ago. Now that we are just 3 and 5 years away from college, the hubby doesn’t think 529’s are the way to go. I love the idea though!

    Reply
  2. Vera says

    May 27, 2015 at 9:33 am

    I also see nothing in your monthly budgets that say money is going towards college accounts for your kids.

    Reply
    • Stephanie says

      May 27, 2015 at 3:48 pm

      Yep. We just started in May. You will see it in our upcoming budget report that I’ll post next week.

      Reply
  3. Vera says

    May 27, 2015 at 8:44 am

    So wait….a few weeks ago, you said you weren’t saving for your kids’ educations in a comment. Now you say you are? Which is it?

    Reply
    • Stephanie says

      May 27, 2015 at 3:47 pm

      We just started– as in this month! 🙂 We won’t be contributing a lot (like $25/month for each kid), but it’s something. I think that starting is the hardest part. It’s easy to put it off until we’re in a better position, but there’s a lot to be said for just starting.

      Reply
  4. Elise says

    May 27, 2015 at 5:24 am

    Nice article! We have done a lot of research about how to save for our kid’s college…its such a daunting task! For us, we decided on an IRA. That way money can be taken out for educational purposes penalty fee (much like a 529b), but if my kids decide not to go to college they can still use the money for retirement, or their first house. It just seemed like a better choice for our family (after all… knowing my kids they will become professional clowns and never go to college :))

    Reply
    • Stephanie says

      May 27, 2015 at 3:43 pm

      That’s great that you’ve already started saving. I wonder if 529s work for clown school! 🙂

      Reply
  5. Fiby says

    May 26, 2015 at 12:56 pm

    I don’t have kids but I’m currently in school (PhD student). I use 529s for the tax loophole. Long story short, by putting money into my state’s 529 and then withdrawing it for educational expenses, I get a tax deduction for my contribution! https://fiby40.wordpress.com/2015/01/22/the-529-tax-loophole-only-for-those-who-pay-for-educational-expenses/
    Works out to a $120 savings.

    One benefit of 529s that isn’t immediately obvious is that it shields income from FAFSA.
    Think of FAFSA and the EFC as a “tax” on income and assets, with a different set of rules and definitions from the IRS. For the rest of this comment when I say taxed I mean assessed by FAFSA

    Income is assessed at a high rate (the top tax bracket for parents of the student is..20%? Maybe higher? I forget). But, the top tax bracket for parental assets is 5.64%.

    Without a 529:
    You earn money. That gets taxed. Then, you save the money in some investment. The investment grows. This investment income is taxed at up to 20%.
    Additionally, the new larger investment balance is taxed at up to 5.64%

    With a 529:
    You earn money. That gets taxed. Then, you save the money in a 529. The underlying investments in the 529 grow. This investment income is never taxed because it is held in a 529.
    The new 529 balance is still taxed at up to 5.64%.

    The investment balance is taxed the same either way, but the investment income in the 529 is never taxed.

    Reply
    • Stephanie says

      May 27, 2015 at 3:41 pm

      That’s great! A lot of people don’t realize that you can use a 529 for yourself.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Search

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Our Big Goal

Want to start a money making blog?  You don't need to be a tech wizard!  Here's the step-by-step photo tutorial!  You can do this!

Top Posts

  • 🥛 7 Smart Ways to Use Almost Expired Milk (Don't throw it out!)
    🥛 7 Smart Ways to Use Almost Expired Milk (Don't throw it out!)
  • Homemade Powdered Laundry Detergent with Zote
    Homemade Powdered Laundry Detergent with Zote
  • 🍅Homemade Tomato Sauce from Tomato Puree 🍅
    🍅Homemade Tomato Sauce from Tomato Puree 🍅
  • My #1 Garage Sale Pet Peeve-- Don't Make This Mistake!
    My #1 Garage Sale Pet Peeve-- Don't Make This Mistake!
  • 5 Smart Financial Moves We Made as First Time Home Buyers
    5 Smart Financial Moves We Made as First Time Home Buyers
  • Easy Homemade Pie Crust in Bulk-- Frugal Festivities Day #12
    Easy Homemade Pie Crust in Bulk-- Frugal Festivities Day #12
  • Why My First Blog Failed-- Don't Make These Mistakes
    Why My First Blog Failed-- Don't Make These Mistakes
  • Cost of Setting Up Our Airbnb Rental
    Cost of Setting Up Our Airbnb Rental

Find it On AMAZON!

Now there is a simple and powerful way to track your blogging income and expenses to know exactly how profitable you are!

READER FAVORITES

Expert Tips to Save Money on Road Trips
How and Why to Live on Last Month's iIncome
Earning on Etsy Series
How to Set Up a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog

Copyright © 2013-2023 Six Figures Under

Privacy Policy · Copyright © 2023 ·Tasteful Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in