Women's Money Wisdom

Episode 237: Getting Ready to Pay for College with Lucy Valandra, CFP® & Alexa Kane, CFP®, CDFA®, AIF®

• Melissa Joy, CFP® • Season 4 • Episode 237

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Ever wondered how to secure a bright educational future for your children without compromising your own financial well-being? 

Join Melissa Joy, CFP®, CDFA®, and her insightful colleagues Lucy Valandra, CFP®, and Alexa Kane, CFP®, CDFA®, AIF®, as they share personal stories and helpful tips to make the college savings process smoother. 

Lucy starts off with her heartwarming journey as a new mother to twin boys and the proactive steps she's taking toward their education savings. Meanwhile, Alexa, balancing life with two boys and a baby girl on the way, breaks down the many benefits of 529 plans—from tax advantages to their flexibility. Together, they discuss how dedicated college savings can provide both financial security and peace of mind. 

We'll also explore the broad possibilities of educational funds beyond traditional four-year colleges, touching on trade schools, community colleges, and even off-campus housing. 

Alexa dives deep into the critical balance between saving for college and securing your own retirement, emphasizing the importance of early and adaptable savings strategies. You’ll learn about lesser-known benefits of 529 plans, such as paying off siblings' student loans and redirecting leftover funds wisely. 

This episode is packed with practical advice and personal anecdotes to empower you with the knowledge to make informed decisions about your children’s educational futures and your financial health. 

 

 

Listen and Learn: 

 

  • 529 plans offer tax advantages and flexibility for saving for college 
  • It is possible to repatriate funds from 529 accounts for other purposes, such as retirement savings or paying off student loans 
  • How to find a balance between saving for college and retirement is important  

Resources:  

  • Connect with Alexa on LinkedIn 
  • Connect with Lucy on LinkedIn 
  • Listen to the College Savings Webinar here  


Links are being provided for information purposes only. The information herein is general and educational in nature and should not be considered legal or tax advice. Tax laws and regulations are complex and subject to change, which can materially impact investment results. Pearl Planning cannot guarantee that the

The previous presentation by PEARL PLANNING was intended for general information purposes only. No portion of the presentation serves as the receipt of, or as a substitute for, personalized investment advice from PEARL PLANNING or any other investment professional of your choosing. Different types of investments involve varying degrees of risk, and it should not be assumed that future performance of any specific investment or investment strategy, or any non-investment related or planning services, discussion or content, will be profitable, be suitable for your portfolio or individual situation, or prove successful. Neither PEARL PLANNING’s investment adviser registration status, nor any amount of prior experience or success, should be construed that a certain level of results or satisfaction will be achieved if PEARL PLANNING is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services. PEARL PLANNING is neither a law firm nor accounting firm, and no portion of its services should be construed as legal or accounting advice. No portion of the video content should be construed by a client or prospective client as a guarantee that he/she will experience a certain level of results if PEARL PLANNING is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services. A copy of PEARL PLANNING’s current written disclosure Brochure discussing our advisory services and fees is available upon request or at https://pearlplan.com/

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Women's Money Wisdom Podcast. I'm Melissa Joy, a certified financial planner and the founder of Pearl Planning. My goal is to help you streamline and organize your finances, navigate big money decisions with confidence and be strategic in order to grow your wealth. As a woman, you work hard for your money and I'm here to help you make the most of it. Now let's get into the show. Have you looked at the cost of college and thought about saving for college for your kids and just thought why even start? It is just too expensive, too complicated, I've got too much going on.

Speaker 1:

Well, today I'm joined by my colleagues, lucy Blandra and Alexa Kane. We are all certified financial planners and we have all probably had the same thought. In fact, I'll spend some time talking about how we feel and what we're doing when it comes to college savings. Lucy and Alexa recently recorded a podcast that was all about college savings techniques from a financial planner perspective. That had a built-in target audience of people like you, and so, whether you're a parent or grandparent or someone who's saving for college to pay for it yourself, I think this episode will be a great companion to that webinar, where we can hear and see some real life examples of what college savings is like, and then go to our YouTube site, pearlplanning on YouTube, and you'll be able to also see a replay of the webinar, which is available now. We'll make sure to have the link in the show notes as well. And, while you're there, if you like and subscribe, we love that too. Lucy, alexa, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 3:

Thanks for having us, excited to be back.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's been a while, and we work together, shoulder to shoulder, every day, so we've got to do this more often. Yes, well, we each have kids at a different kind of stage of life, and at the end of the episode, just giving you a heads up, we're going to talk about what you're doing yourself, but first I'm going to allow each of you to kind of introduce yourself, starting with Lucy, and give us the perspective of where you're at in your parenting journey.

Speaker 2:

So, like Melissa said, my name is Lucy Philandra. I'm a certified financial planner and the newest member of the apparel planning team, having joined this spring. I'm very happy to be here. This spring, my husband and I also welcomed twin boys into our family. They are now five months old, so we hit the ground running with savings, but it's been a wild ride of reshuffling where we lived and joining a new firm, as well as welcoming these two wonderful bundles of joy into our lives.

Speaker 1:

And then Alexa, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I have been up for almost four years. Probably next week will hit the milestone.

Speaker 1:

Celebrate.

Speaker 3:

Crazy. I have a six-year-old and two-year-old boys, and then we'll be welcoming the little girl in November. So extra chaos over here as well. So we're definitely in the thick of it. And then, you know, melissa's on that next phase with the little older kids, and one started to make some money.

Speaker 1:

So that's and a kid, who my son will be, is sophomore, so we're thinking about college now, or what that means for him, and we've been thinking about this college savings in a theoretical perspective for a long time. I think all of us use 529 accounts, correct? Yeah, and Alexa, you're kind of our 529 guru, like it or not, at the office, so I'm going to let you give us an overview for our audience, who may have heard of hey, there's some numbers that are associated with college savings. I can't quite remember what they are. Tell us what 529 plans are.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, 529 plans are really great easy ways to save for college. Taxes are another love language for me, and the nine are my favorite triple tax advantage for most people. Michigan has a state tax deduction available and then there's 30 states that offer some sort of credit or deduction on contributions. So in most cases there is that advantage right away. And then the accounts grow tax deferred. So any growth inside of there there's no tax implications while it's in the 529 account. So getting money in early and often allows it to really just grow and accelerate. And then when you go to take the money out, if it's for a qualified expense, there's no tax implications on that. So a tax break on the beginning, no taxes in the middle and no taxes at the end. It just really is very powerful.

Speaker 3:

And the qualifying expenses for 529s has really expanded. So it's room and board, not only out of four-year schools, there's trade schools, certified apprenticeship programs. You can also use it for K 12 school if it's private school tuition that you've decided to pursue. And then also $10,000 can be used to pay down student loans on the other side. So there's a lot in their books, room and board. There's just so many things and then a lot of flexibility. If one child decides not to go to school, you can change the beneficiary to another child. There are just so many advantages there. And really flexible, because what the six-year-old at a two-year-old? It's kind of a toss-up of what, what they'll end up doing down the road. But just knowing that you know, hey, maybe it's baby number three that will end up using all, all the 529.

Speaker 1:

But lots of great tax incentives and then just the power of saving over time is also great there I also think it's under discussed that just having that account that's like really locked into college savings, is a great like psychological behavioral barrier to accidentally spending money on something else. So I know some people are like you know, I just want to have an investment account, taxable account, or sometimes a Roth account that you know they've gone on a Reddit thread, they've listed on TikTok and they're like oh, 529s, they're not cool, you can't trade a bunch in them, which is actually, I think, a feature, not a bug. But you know, having that like real hey, this money is for college can help to protect it so that you don't forget about it or use it for something else.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the mental accounting is definitely real there and I love the kind of set it and forget it features of the 529 of, just you know monthly contributions can really add up and having something like a target date fund where it starts off, as you know, a more aggressive mixture of stocks and bonds and as the kid gets closer to that target age of starting college it's getting more and more conservative as time goes on. So it's a great kind of set it and forget it tool.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, one of the clunkier functions of 529s. It was created through this legislation. It's pretty clear to me with a political science background that there was a lot of lobbying going on by asset management companies because basically what happens is every state has a 529. In fact, most of them have a couple at least. Each one is just tied to one company. So, using the state of Michigan and we just use Michigan because we're here but we advise clients all over the country about college savings it's TIA and Nuveen which are actually the same company, and there's one set that's sold by an advisor and so the advisor gets compensated on that, and there's another that's just direct at the state and you do more of the lifting but you pay less. Just direct at the state and you do more of the lifting but you pay less.

Speaker 1:

And frankly, on 529s we tend to like kind of send you to the state site because there's not a lot of fanciness and if you're working with us, our advice on that education is paid for with our overall financial and planning engagement and it's not the best place to be paying for investment management. So you know, one of the things that people I hear all the time is like and it stops people from starting is well, I'm not sure if my kid is going to spend the money. So what do I do about that? Like, that is, you know, a big hurdle, and these types of hurdles then create, you know, indecision and missed opportunities. And sometimes, in our view, lucy, what, what do you say, what kind of conversations do you have when there's that concern about overfunding?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I actually hear this a lot and there is new legislation that kind of has rocked the boat a little bit with this and makes the 529 a no-brainer, which is you can now take up to $35,000 that's been in the 529 and convert that into a Roth IRA for that beneficiary.

Speaker 2:

So might not sound like a lot of money, but it really is. To you know, launch into starting early with retirement savings, and the Roth is a great tool that can also be used for a first time home purchase and other things. And, like Alexa was saying earlier, you can always also change the beneficiary on the 529 account, whether that be to another sibling, to yourself, if you want to go back for further education, or to a niece and nephew or future generations. So there's a lot of flexibility within the 529, both before and after. And, you know, if scholarships are something that is on the table, you can actually take the money out from the 529, as well as, like Alexa said, take the money out from the 529, as well as, like Alexis said, with student loans. There's a $10,000 lifetime limit that can be used to pay for student loans and graduate school too. People forget that these funds can be used, you know for higher education beyond you know, your typical four-year college.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's a lot of different ways to in essence repatriate the money. It sits outside of your estate, if estate taxes ever change. I mean, this is relevant if you have more than north of $10 or $20 million today, but someday that kind of level may be lower. When you hit those roadblocks, this is where a financial planner comes in, because we both have the experience. Like I know, alexa and I have worked with people who were receiving scholarships in grad school, so we're getting money out penalty free that matched the scholarships, for example.

Speaker 1:

Or something that's under appreciated is, if you, your kid, has an apartment at school, they can go and take the funds that are equal to kind of the prevailing rental rate that the school publishes and you can reimburse for the apartment so they don't have to stay on campus the whole time. But you know, this is job security for us, I think, is like okay, we've seen this before, let's talk through, you know, and in some cases it may be legit like okay, it makes from your perspective, because your philosophy on college really matters, let's not do it. But it just depends on the family.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, every situation is unique and I think it's a great opportunity, if you're having these questions, to talk and reach out to a financial professional.

Speaker 1:

Anything you'd add, Alexa, of like nuances that you've seen over the years.

Speaker 3:

I was going to say just that you know finding the balance and Lucy talked a lot about it in the webinar about you know saving for college versus saving for retirement, and I think it gets especially hard when you start college and those bills start coming to. You know, continue taking care of yourself and your retirement savings. You know those 401ks, um, and knowing you know what the options are for your kids to help them but also really continue helping yourself, because at the end of the day, you don't want to put off your retirement so your child can have the college education and then, years later, your child is having to provide for you from that education. So finding the balance is hard, but it's what we work with a lot of people on of hey, there's lots of opportunities along the way. You don't have to have everything paid for day one.

Speaker 3:

You also are in charge of talking to your family about your philosophy with money, how your school journey went, what the expectations are with your kids, and then you can always change your mind. Or, you know, after they're graduated you can help with paying off student loans. It's nice sometimes that they have a buy-in, but you don't want your kids to have to completely suffer for the school. So we do see that a lot of like hey, you know, they took on some of this burden and now we're on the other side. They got the parents have a raise or a bonus. Hey, I'd like to kind of wipe this out or give a chunk over here to to relieve that, not as an expectation but as a true gift of like, where we always want to help you and it's not at the detriment to ourselves yeah, I'm actually working with a family right now where we are planning to use kid threes 529 funds to pay off some student loans that kids one and two had.

Speaker 1:

So they had like compartmentalize, you know, three buckets for kids and they're each kid came out of college with a small portion of student loan debt in relative to what it could be, and mom and dad were like, hey, have five vehicles at the house and things like that, and so they wanted to kind of reserve the right to decide later. Well, kid three has one of those elusive nearly full ride situations and so there's money there and one of the things that has eased up is you can pay student loans for yourself or siblings from the 529 funds. So, again, loans for yourself or siblings from the 529 funds. So again, this is just examples of kind of some of the things we see. I also.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes there are people and, um that are like I don't know about the benefit of college. It's very expensive. And in my case, you know, perhaps, um, you know you're in a profession that doesn't require a college education. You know, I think I have an opinion, that is that college gives you a better statistical probability. But what do you guys think and that's not to poo poo, that you know point of view. It's just like we're editorializing today and say how we really feel. So we're giving our own perspective.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, alexa referenced a great study in the webinar that showed on average how much more you can make over your lifetime with a college education. So there really is true monetary benefit for college education. And you know, on the flip side of that coin, some sort of you know credential, whether that be through trade school, is also definitely rising. I feel like those used to be kind of a taboo job area but they're definitely revitalizing so you can use a 529 for you know those types of education. And don't forget about community college. It's a great place to start if you are unsure what you should major in, or knocking out some gen eds at a lower cost or for summer classes.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and I think you know, when you look at that perspective, it's case by case. The other thing that is really important, companion to the actual financial finances of writing the checks or taking loans, is like, hey, kiddo, college isn't like a right, it's not, you know, like experiences that everybody deserves. This is an investment, that it's a co-investment between parent and child in the case that parents are contributing into your future success. So, of course, college is an extraordinary experience, hopefully, for many people. But this is also something where the intent is that you have the ability to earn over time, I think in almost every case, and so it's important that you're building those life skills. You're, you know, increasing your responsibilities and accountabilities. And I think the place where I would step back is if it was a path to know where college really was for someone with different needs, a higher cost college, but then at the end there's not an opportunity for work that is equivalent or higher earnings, then you may need to have, you know, important discussions if it's threatening the safety or financial stability of the family. So let's talk about another kind of portion. So I want to flip to from younger perspective, of kind of forming a family style.

Speaker 1:

We've had a past guest on the episode, by the way, anne Garcia, who's the author of a great book on how to pay for college. We will include links to past videos, webinars and podcasts that she's done with us in show notes, and she has some great like family philosophy worksheets, for example, and how to introduce the concepts of college to her kids. She did it with her own kids and now she's teaching us how to do that ourselves. But when you get closer to college, kids may be earning money. She did it with her own kids and now she's teaching us how to do that ourselves. But when you get closer to college, kids may be earning money. You mentioned that I don't think my son's going to have a big bank account at the end of the summer because he learned to spend money and we're going to you know have to work on that savings portion.

Speaker 1:

But if a kid comes in and they've really saved to pay for their portion of college, what percent is are they expected to pay? What percent of parents' assets are expected to be considered for an expected family contribution?

Speaker 3:

So on the FAFSA the student assets count for 20 percent and the parent assets count for 5.64, I think somewhere.

Speaker 1:

Around 5% just to cover our bases.

Speaker 3:

There is a percentage there. Yeah, and you know the FAFSA, I think, has been through some things recently.

Speaker 1:

It's been through a disassembling, I think is what it's been through through a disassembling, I think is what it's been through.

Speaker 3:

It's, you know, the original or the previous form of a hundred and some questions and very long time consuming. Um, they've done a revamp. Now it's 36 questions. There's a way to kind of connect your tax return to the FAFSA, which in theory will make it easier. People who were around last year saw the first attempt on the revamp and it was filled with lots of bugs and kind of issues just with the change. But in theory it should be a more streamlined approach.

Speaker 3:

And then already, someday they've moved the um the date to open up December 1st this year. Typically it's earlier in the fall, but the hope is that it's easier for people to complete and to get that on their file.

Speaker 3:

Hopefully, I'm hoping that this year will be better, and Anne Garcia does have some great blog posts about the FAFSA and then, as things change, they're making updates each year, just tweaks and that stuff. But she's a great resource because that is its own kind of animal and just like student loans as well, are a big topic and a big thing to to tackle on the on the reverse side, yeah absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Is that limited just to those that might need student aid. We really encourage any family to fill it out, even with, hopefully, less of a headache than it is now, than it used to be. But it's important and it can surprise you how it might be able to help, no matter what your economic situation is.

Speaker 1:

The one thing I encourage families to take with an extreme grain of salt is there are some situations where people specialize in kind of moving around your assets to get more aid. Very leery about moving assets exclusively into annuities, for example. That is kind of an annuity insurance selling wolf that's in sheep's clothing trying to help you with your kids' college finances. So be careful. If you really feel like you're behind the eight ball because you waited to save, or perhaps you have a job interruption and you were in a two family income household to one, have a realistic conversation about what you could actually qualify for when it comes to student aid, because you may be able to qualify for a lot.

Speaker 1:

Who is like right in the middle class lane or upper middle class? Who has a kid with a nearly full ride to University of Michigan this year? That's because there are more generation financial aid packages in many cases and the sticker price of college is not always the price that you're going to take home. But do be careful. If it sounds too good to be true, it may be and also it may impact your general financial condition, which is not like. College is something that's a portion of your life, not all of your life. You don't want to compromise your retirement readiness because you were feeling under the gun about college.

Speaker 2:

Right. There are so many options to pay for college. We see it in the webinar. There's a great chart that looks at all the different combinations that families on average use. It's not just, you know, the 529. It's a combination of parents cash flow, of having kids out of the house. It frees up a little bit more cash as well, as you know student loans, parents taking out some student loans, scholarships, grants, gifts from families and friends. But you need to be able to we jokingly say put your own oxygen mask on first and make sure that you're saving for retirement, because there's no plan B for your retirement, Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Well, let's talk in our own words about what we're doing for college. And then I have a surprise question after. I'm going to ask you not surprise, surprise. After that, I want us to each talk about what we did for college, because none of us came from a family of unlimited means and we, you know, can maybe give a little bit behind the scenes. But I want to prep people for situations where, you know, an unlimited budget for your kid is not always the right choice. I do think you know an unlimited budget for your kid is not always the right choice. I do think you know some tough knocks when it comes to adolescents can create important legacies and financial perspectives for later in life. But starting, let's start youngest to oldest. So I'll start with you, lucy. What have you talked with your husband, tom, about when it comes to saving for college, and what have you guys have like as your initial idea or insight about what you're going to do?

Speaker 2:

So we've both been very lucky and very supported by our families. I should preface by saying my wonderful mother-in-law also is a financial planner, so I was pressured, before we even left the hospital, to have 529s open, and so we did, and we have been contributing monthly to those and have family and friends that are also in this profession that have already contributed. That we feel very blessed about. But they're by no means going to be fully funded by the time they go to college. So we've talked about, we definitely wanna help them out if we're able to and potentially take out parent loans if we need to. But also we want our boys to have some skin in the game too, if college is something that's important to them. Taking out student loans and doing that kind of combo platter is most likely what we're going to do, even though that feels light years away. How about you?

Speaker 3:

alexa I also. I started my 529s very early because that's our world um saving monthly. The michigan 529s have a great little code you can send out to family and hey, the one-year-old doesn't need any more light up toys. You can get a little toy and put the rest in the 529. So it was, you know, training grandmas and grandpas to do that, because that's a great gift for them and for our family.

Speaker 3:

I mostly I have decided that we're going with having those decisions about. You know, this bucket could fund community college for the two years and get you to four years. It could get you, you know, a couple years at this big school and then the other years. You know you can figure it out and really giving them, you know, the options and, of course, helping them through those choices. But ultimately, don't don't let Patrick and Joe listen, but you know, on the backside I do feel it will be a situation where, hey, you've, you know, carved out your path, but on the once you're done with school, I can help with paying back loans or giving you a start. You know, if they go around that uses the 529s, it may be helping in other ways that we see fit, but not committing to a four-year plan.

Speaker 1:

I love that, so I'll just give you. I have a 529 for each kid. That's another thing to think about is they're really flexible to go amongst siblings. So sometimes people are like it's just too much for me to figure out. If you started at a different time period where they're each a different staggered age, just start with one. That's fine. But what I'm also fortunate in-laws had like kind of a game plan where they give a really nice amount at birth and kindergarten one more time, and so my kids have received some funds from grandma and grandpa that went directly you know that check went right into the 529 plan in their name.

Speaker 1:

And then we were really kind of under felt, felt the pressure of the cost of daycare when our kids were younger and didn't feel like we had a ton of extra money. And I was kind of playing catch up on retirement while just having kind of bootstrapped it in my 20s and really started accumulating money in my 30s when I was also having kids and was buying into a partnership at my former firm. So I didn't have as much money and so I just pulled up. Actually I can see my 529 like contributions and we got that grandma gift in the beginning and then, sure enough, like right when kindergarten starts and the daycare goes down, I see another big country like that's when we started contributing and then my case we did have I didn't do like the monthly nearly as much, but I had some kind of irregular income that would come in in chunks in good years for my company and so I would do bigger contributions in those years. At least that's what I did when I was like you know, kind of really like in those accumulating years in your 30s when I had a younger kid, and into my 40s. And so now we have a bucket that I really feel confident is going to, is considerable, and that early gift from grandma and grandpa was really beneficial and I would totally like respect the start, even with 50 bucks a month, and then increase it. That's what we're doing with a lot of clients over time.

Speaker 1:

It's interesting because my kids are don't love school as much, and I hope at least my older one, and I hope that changes over time. But like I'm very much interested and probably will have a future guest on gap years for you know, kind of buying some time to build life skills and or community college, so that we're using these funds over time, but I'm not assuming necessarily that it's going to be a four year at age 18, kind of college experience and but I still feel like it was a great decision to load up on that fund because I did make bigger, much bigger contributions, um, in elementary school years. Um, so no regrets so far, cause I also know that those funds can be used for other family things, um, and things like that, and I feel confident that, um, you know we're increasing the conversations with our kids about, um, hey, we are. When it's like I don't love school, mom, I don't want to go to school, you know, like I'd rather just get done as quickly as possible, it's like, well, we have been saving for you to find the right pathway, and things like that, and it changes. It's not like, you know, um, when I was a kid and maybe we can pivot to the way things were then I was like, you know, must go to best college and, you know, live the dream. It's a different perspective and that's just fine. You know those are lessons of parenting. So my own lessons I'll tell you.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to the um university of Michigan versus Texas game, which is I don't know if it'll be before or after this episode comes out. Um, but the football game, um, but that is. Uh. I'm going there with my dad and my dad was.

Speaker 1:

We lived in Kansas, but we were from Texas and my dad was a huge university of Texas fan. He would have loved to go to school there, but his parents had never gone to college. His dad was a lawnmower, his mom worked at the Levi's factory, and so he really wanted me to go to University of Texas, which I got admitted to and was pre-accepted at the business honors program, and I just wanted to go wherever my parents said not to, I was ready to leave the nest and not stay in Kansas either, and I went to University of Michigan. So along the way, my dad did pay for a portion. My mom was a single mom and she actually took some loans out to help me too, and I worked throughout college and before and I didn't write tuition checks, but I paid for most of my spending money and when I left school I had loans.

Speaker 1:

It wasn't the most. My dad was disappointed that I went to school at an out-of-state school that was more expensive, and I learned a lot of lessons about independence and I don't know if I made the perfect choice. It was the perfect choice for where I've landed today, but a lot of bumps along the way. But I think some of those lessons of limitations or, you know, not just getting a blank check for school were actually quite good. And I know parents today feel less than sometimes when they can't write the full checks or they may be willing to put themselves into parent plus loans that are like astronomical, and I just don't want you to feel like you're paying off student loans while you also are retiring at your you, whether it's your perfect retirement date or because you you need to because of a job change or your body just can't take it anymore. So that was a big. That's a lot of information. But that's me. What about you guys? Alexa, what did you do? How did you put yourself through school and how did your parents help?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so I am the middle of five, so there's a lot of expenses on a lot of schools. So we did have a little bit of college savings, but a lot of it we were kind of on our own, especially as a child who graduated in 2008. A child who graduated in 2008. Yeah, really, a lesson I learned is those age based funds with the 529 plans are a great tool, because when you do go through those time periods and you're ready to start college, it would be really nice if the the funds you saved would be there.

Speaker 1:

So that's one thing there is no, I know in. The money is less in a 529 account typically than the parent's retirement plan, but there's nothing that makes a parent saver more upset than a 529 fund. That used to be 50,000. Now it's 30,000 the year that they're going to school. That is just very emotional, very difficult conversation. So getting more conservative can feel like you're missing out on something. But the age-based funds have something. You know have a thing or two going on there.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, there was a reason behind that and I think I was part of that or our age group was. But I took all the AP classes. We had a dual enrollment program with the local college, so I took part in those. And then my technical freshman year, I went part-time in Minnesota to a community college and played junior hockey for a year so it was a different route and then, uh, transferred to South Dakota state as a sophomore and did the rest of my college years there. Um, did not take any loans. I worked basically full time during college and then a lot in the summer. So it was kind of crazy. And I think the other thing I would really probably focus on if I could do it again is, you know, focusing on scholarships and ways to you know making $14 an hour if you get $1,000 scholarship, like the time of getting back that time and, you know, maybe enjoying the experience a little more than working all the time. And how about you, lucy?

Speaker 2:

I am the youngest of three and there's a bit of an age gap between all of us, so I was lucky in the sense that my parents were a bit older and a bit more in their higher earning years when I went to school, so they financially helped out a lot as well.

Speaker 2:

As my grandpa paid for two years, I did have some student loans and I worked in the summertime to help pay those down and my mom and dad both helped to pay off some of those student loans on the backside of college. So it actually helped to build up my credit and when I went to go buy my first home very young I had a great credit score which I didn't realize because of that student loan. So thanks, mom. But yeah, it was a great time four years at Sweetbriar College, which is a small women's liberal arts school in Virginia, and we kind of did the general mix of everything and that worked out well for me and I hope that I can do something similar for my kids, because it was nice to not have a ton of pressure during the school year.

Speaker 2:

I could just focus on being a student, enjoying that experience and being on sports teams, which I loved.

Speaker 1:

I love that too. I think that if I were leaving with a lesson for everyone, it's incrementalism Don't look at that big number and think, oh my gosh, just like, let's not even talk about it because it's not happening this month. 50 bucks a month. Now a reminder to family like, hey, it's nice that there's the. You know, if you celebrate Christmas, the Christmas tree is filled with gifts. But if you wrote a check and, just like, cut the price in half of all the things under the tree, that would be nice. And you know, just having discussions both with your co-decision makers, co-parents, partners, etc. And or your kids as they get older, to regardless of your circumstances, there are pathways and we just thank you for listening to both the technical side, which again listen to the webinar for more technical details on financial savings, but also our personal experiences that we instill into the advice that we give one-on-one with people.

Speaker 1:

If you enjoyed the episode, please like, subscribe, leave us a review and we're always available, too, to hear future episodes that you'd love to hear about. So if you have ideas of what you want to hear, please let us know. Have a great day. Thank you for listening to the Women's Money Wisdom Podcast. If you found value in this episode. The best way you can support the podcast is to forward an episode to a friend or leave a review. Go to pearlplancom and the podcast link to get all the resources and links mentioned.

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Melissa Joy, CFP

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