College acceptance letter day: a moment every parent dreams of. The stress and anxiety of waiting are finally over, the hard work has paid off, and your kid has finally received the letter they’ve been waiting for. So your proud kid jumps up and down in excitement like a kangaroo and you feel as if you were on cloud nine! Congrats!
Then comes the scary piece of the admission process: the award letter. The letter that will forecast your child’s future. And, here you are, standing in the middle of the kitchen next to your blissful, ready-to-take-on-the-world kid, tear the letter open and you can’t believe your eyes when you see thousands of dollars in the tuition line.
You’re upset. It wasn’t what you’d expected. Now, you go into panic planning mode. You have to calculate the real cost of this good news, and how to adjust your family’s finances. The first thing that comes to your mind is student loans. But as an adult – you understand how student loans delay life decisions like buying a home or starting a family. And as a parent, obviously you want a different life path for your kid. Maybe every joy has to carry a matching regret. So now you intentionally delaying talk about finances, pretending to clean your kitchen table and trying to figure out how you can manage this.
Suddenly, you remember the summer before sixth grade, when the two of you went together to Target a month before the start of middle school and bought all the supplies your kid would need, even a lock for the locker! Having a locker — and being able to manage a combination lock — was such a big deal! With all the school supplies in hand well in advance, you felt so prepared. But now that all seems so trivial, and you wish you could turn back time…
Now Cher’s song is echoing in a sad box in your mind, along with all the things you wanted to do but never got around to, like saving money for your kid’s college. How much money should you have saved by now? What could you have done to avoid you kid having to search “How to Pay off Student Loan Debt? Not a rosy picture.
Most parents of high school students believe saving for college is important, but many end up regretting not saving more, according to a survey from Student Loan Hero. One of the families who plan to send their kids to college, only 47% have a plan to pay for it. We, at U-Nest, understand why:
- It costs a lot to open and maintain an account
- You have to make a lot of investment decisions
- You think it’s too late to open a college savings account
- You need to deal with long and confusing application
We live in a remarkable time, when mobile applications are created to simplify our busy lives. As gadget people, we download them to save time, money and even avoid future mistakes. To all parents with children under age of 18: LIFT YOUR SPIRITS! Here is the way to prevent you from regretting not saving any college money.
U-Nest is a great financial app that simplifies the process of creating a college fund, using the most tax-advantaged account (529 plan). A 529 grows interest because it’s counted as an investment. In addition, the account grows tax – free; savings accounts typically don’t grow much (that’s the main difference). There’s a college calculator built in to help you set the right saving goal to fulfill your soon-student’s future. You have instant access to your balances and transactions, which U-Nest will protect using bank – level security.
Every dollar saved for college is one less dollar your child will have to borrow. Think about it now, while your child is so young (or so old). The sooner you start, the less you’ll be wishing you could turn back time.
This material is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, legal, or tax advice. You should consult your own financial, legal, and tax advisors before engaging in any transaction. Information, including hypothetical projections of finances, may not take into account taxes, commissions, or other factors which may significantly affect potential outcomes. This material should not be considered an offer or recommendation to buy or sell a security. While information and sources are believed to be accurate, UNest does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any information or source provided herein and is under no obligation to update this information.
