529 Savings For your Kids

[Tahoe1305]

Can someone confirm what the options are if they don’t use/need the $$ for college?

Scholarships or other good deals pay for it instead…..

I’ve heard you can roll it legally into a Roth but it isn’t simple.

 

[z987k]

This is the route we took as well. The tax savings were not significant enough to justify a large account that is locked into education funding, particularly since we have a boy. For all I know, he might decide to enter the workforce at 18 or he might make a 35 on his ACT and get a full ride to his college of choice. If that’s the case, we still have the freedom to use the funds as desired.

If you actually max a 529 fund and then s&p it for 18 years, you're looking at $500k ish in gains you don't have to pay taxes on.
Even at long term capitol gains rates that's still 75k.
And then it probably still wont pay for what college will cost 18 years from now.

 

[nreynolds84]

We put half of the kids’ Alaska PFD into a 529 plan. Hoping it gets put to good use in the future.

 

[passinggas33]

I would highly recommend that if you do a 529, look at the one through Utah. The have a low fee one, and has done really great for me investment wise. I’ve been very happy with theirs, as have my kids who have benefited greatly from having it.

 

[svivian]

Can someone confirm what the options are if they don’t use/need the $$ for college?

Scholarships or other good deals pay for it instead…..

I’ve heard you can roll it legally into a Roth but it isn’t simple.

I set my kids Colorado 529 savings up when she was born. You can select from 3 or 4 options. I chose the investment one that is like my 401k. So far it has performed well.

As for scholarships, you can take dollar for dollar out without penalty. You can also roll additional funds to other kids or even yourself for education.

Anything outside education is a 10% penalty plus taxes on gains

Colorado also matches $500 per year for the first 5 years right now.

 

[406flyfish]

We set up a 529 for each kid when they were born. Grand parents and family add to it for birthday & holidays.