Our little girl is already 6 weeks old and before you know it I will probably be talking about her heading to college. Time is flying and I feel like now is the best time to get the game plan ready for college savings since I have time on my side.
I would have loved to be able to set aside $5,000 in a 529 plan at my daughter’s birth for college. If I could have done that I think our college savings plan would be in good shape. However that didn’t happen.
The good news is we have already set aside ~$1,000 in 529 plans for her college education thanks to contributions we made before she was even born and at birth. In the grand scheme of things I think that’s a really good start, however I know its likely not enough to cover her college education expenses down the road.
I also started an automatic monthly contribution to her 529 plan. I started at $25/month thinking I just wanted to get the regular contributions started. However the more I think about it, right now seems like the best time to make more serious contributions. Her expenses will only go up as she gets older so I doubled our monthly contribution to $50/month. I think that puts us in a manageable position going forward. If our monthly cash flow improves over time we will up the contribution more.
