Saving money for college can be a daunting task. There are so many costs associated with attending college in this day and age that it's unreal. Imagine 18 years from now (add or subtract a few years depending on the age of your child) what the costs for college will be. Fortunately there are a few options that you have to save a hearty chunk of change for your child's college fund now without breaking the bank (literally investing a few dollars/pennies a week).
- Use the 52 Week Savings Challenge to save for College: This is an interesting way to save. The first week of the year you save $1, then week 2 $2, week 3 $3, and so on all the way until the last week of the year $52. That makes it to where $52 is the MOST that you will have to save in one week each year. This equals out to $1378 per year that you can save for college. Open a high yield savings account (preferably with an online bank that has a pretty good interest rate) to keep the money in. Every year start over with $1 for week one. If you did this for 18 years you'd have a good $24,804 dollars saved (this is WITHOUT any interest added).
- Earn Money for College with Upromise: Upromise gives you cash back for purchases made online (especially if you download their TurboSaver Toolbar), in the grocery store (when you load coupons to your account), and for eating at certain restaurants/purchasing gas at certain stations. Upromise pays out the earnings quarterly when you request a check. If you were to average around $200 a year with Upromise, you could save another $36,000.
- Whole Life Policy: No one likes to think about having to get life insurance protection for their children. BUT a whole life insurance policy could come in handy for college expenses. With the Gerber Life Insurance Plan you could invest as little as $2.63/month for a policy and the premium amount NEVER goes up in price. The best part about this type of policy is that when your child is 18 years old the coverage DOUBLES. So if you started off with a $25,000 policy, it will double to $50,000 when your child is college aged (still the premium amount does not increase). Your child is able to borrow from the policy to pay for college expenses--meaning that you have just saved a LOT of money for your childs college expenses for pennies a day.
These are only 3 ways that you can save up to $100,000 easily for your childs college expenses. Even if you don't have a full 18 years to save, you can STILL start today to build a significant nest egg for your child to lean on in those penny pinching college years.
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