Upromise and IRAs

So Dave and I have been discussing how on earth our middle class selves are going to afford to put this bun, much less any other subsequent buns, through college.  Wait.  Let me rephrase that.  The question is how we're going to save for college as well as for retirement considering my 8 years in graduate school didn't end up adding a whole lot to the retirement coffers and with the enormous student loan I took out actually takes away from our ability to add to the retirement funds quite a bit.

So here is the good news:  Upromise and IRAs.  Upromise accounts are accounts in which companies contribute money to an educational fund for a child when you buy their products.  It's a very small amount per purchase (10 cents here, 3 cents there) but as Dave puts it, it's free money.  Well, ok. Not exactly free.  The companies give money to your account when you sign up your credit cards and VIP grocery store cards in the Upromise program.  So they're getting a free look into your purchases.  Being that my first job in the "real world" before I went back to graduate school was in a company that analyzed that sort of data, I understand that it means that they get the privilege of seeing and analyzing everything you purchase.  Fortunately there's so much data that they accumulate that the individual analysis of any one person's grocery cart is too overwhelming....and too boring.  I should also note that Upromise also works at places like Circuit City.  So a "big" purchase there can put a "big" amount into the education acct--big being over $10.  At this point though, that's $10 more, really 10 cents more, than we have right now. 

So the scoop?  We went to dinner last night at the Mellow Mushroom that earned us Upromise money.  We buy gas at Mobil and Exxon because they donate 1 penny per gallon of gas.  I bought some cheese and handiwipes last week at the grocery store on the Upromise plan.  (Fortunately, I had a coupon and Harris Teeter had a sign that these were Upromise items).  It's not much money, clearly.  But if for each year we're in the program we can accumulate enough money to buy a semester's worth of books.  Well, that's not bad either. 

The IRA issue is a little bit more complex.  The good news is that with an IRA, we're saving for retirement and that money shouldn't count towards our ability to pay for bun's education.  Why is that good?  Dave will be at an age when bunny goes to college that he can withdraw from the IRAs without penalty to pay for school.  And since it isn't counted in any financial aid figures, we're hoping to use just a little bit to cover the leftover expenses that financial aid won't.  We're also having a bit of a dicussion this morning about whether and how much we can use from a ROTH IRA to pay for colleges.  The best option would not to have to use any of these retirement funds to pay for school.  Because to have bun in Harvard and us in the poor house doesn't really help the family as a whole.  But my preference is not to have the children graduating college with $20 to $30,000 of student loan debt.  That doesn't really help the family as a whole either.

I think the best option is if we win this week's powerball lottery.  That would certainly make things a lot easier as far as worrying about how we're going to work out the budget. 

I think we have about the same probability of winning the lottery as we do of having that major snow storm they're calling for tomorrow.

Off to hell day at work.

7:35:28 AM