Money Magazine has released a new Money Makeover Series and the first area they cover is retiring early. One of the struggles of attempting early retirement is that many families still have children in high school or college and they need to establish a game plan for how to handle the expense of college while still meeting their goal of retiring early.
Kathy Longo provides her expertise in this article published in Money Magazine in April 2017.
Here is the beginning excerpt of the article and a link to the pdf found in the printed version of Money Magazine. We will provide a link to the online version when it is is published.
Tim and Jennifer Eldredge, both 49, live in an area of the country known for its natural beauty. So it’s not surprising that they would like to stop working within a decade or so to spend more time enjoying their great outdoors. There’s just one problem -or rather three. They also want to cover the cost of college for kids Megan, 16, Holden, 14, and Jack, 11. And they have saved only $21,000 in 529 plans.
To help pay tuition, the couple have been contributing $50 a month to each child’s 529 account for about six years, adding some extra on their birthdays. Unfortunately, that’s left them far short of the $60,000 to $80,000 per child they figure they need. Says Tim: “It hasn’t added up like we hoped.”
