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With the start of school just around the corner, it has our family thinking future educational costs -albeit quite a way out into the future.Back when we were expecting our first child, we had a conversation about how we thought we would handle educational expenses for our children. At that time, we both knew we wanted to put something in place related to a college savings plan, but really didn’t have a good understanding of what our options were or how to determine what amount we should be targeting. As life happened, with all the excitement and last-minute preparations for your first child – and college savings seeming so far off, we ended up putting it on the back burner and forgetting until right around her first birthday (which also roughly coincides with the start of back-to-school ads and reminders).We decided we needed to get serious, not wanting to lose another year of investment potential. Since I work for the State of WI, choosing Edvest (which is one of WI’s 529 plans) was a no-brainer since it is easy for me to manage contributions directly from my paycheck. The good news is that Edvest is typically ranked as one of the better 529 plans in the nation. We then spent time going through a few tools available online, including Edvest’s college savings calculator. This helped us balance determining what we felt comfortable setting aside and understanding what that figure would likely amount to once our daughter reached college age.When we had our second child, we ended up increasing our contribution into the initial 529 account that we set up, since our children are likely to have limited or no overlap for their post-secondary education, so we can change the beneficiary of the account rather than having to open a separate account.Their tax benefits, low annual fees, and relative flexibility of what qualified withdrawals are what drew us towards a 529 plan as a vehicle for college savings (in addition to the ease of contribution). One of the ancillary benefits of the plan is the availability for state income tax deductions for anyone who makes contributions (grandparents, aunts/uncles – not just the account owner) up to the annual maximum deduction ($3,560 per beneficiary for 2022).With the start of school serving as our annual mid-year reminder to check into our 529 plan, now behind us, and a comfort level for us going into end of the year and tax season.
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* The Wisconsin's #1 Mortgage Lender designation is based on the number of loans in 2023, gathered from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data compiled annually by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The results of the data were obtained through the