CA$H MONEY $$$

[snoris]

What are you doing for baby savings?  

[ellipses]

Setting up a 529 is on my to-do list. If your state has special tax benefits, it usually makes sense to go with that, but if not you should research other state plans and decide which is the best investment.

[babycaps]

We have a 529 for each kid. We also maxed out all of the possible contributions I can make, pre and post tax. So my take home is really almost none with each paycheck since most of it goes to retirement accounts. DH and I save, save, save, save.

[k3am]

We do a savings account in our names earmarked for each kid. We will likely be moving these to brokerage accounts shortly. We will not be participating in 529 plans, despite the tax incentive.

My goal is to get each kid $50k for college or other life endeavors.

[teraiin]

I need to talk to a financial person at our bank and see what they recommend based on what our in laws want to do for him

[fishbulb]

We have a 529 and a savings account for J. I suppose I should set those up for A too. My mom also has a saving account for each of them.

[walkek85]

We also have a 529 for each boy and contribute monthly.

[snoris]

k3am are your savings accounts high yield? Or regular?

[k3am]

Aug 18, 2016 16:05:21 GMT -5 snoris said:

k3am are your savings accounts high yield? Or regular?

Technically. There really are no "high yield" accounts since fed rates are so low. Even cd rates are historically low. Hence why they'll move to a brokerage.

[snoris]

Aug 18, 2016 16:12:52 GMT -5 k3am said:

Aug 18, 2016 16:05:21 GMT -5 snoris said:

k3am are your savings accounts high yield? Or regular?

Technically. There really are no "high yield" accounts since fed rates are so low. Even cd rates are historically low. Hence why they'll move to a brokerage.

I might consider brokerage too. I don't think 529s are for me. I have a ton of research to do. Gone are the days of hours and hours of Internet research. Baby I is expected to get a few hundy for his baptism next weekend and I'd like to have a plan.

[o2girl]

Aug 18, 2016 16:12:52 GMT -5 k3am said:

Aug 18, 2016 16:05:21 GMT -5 snoris said:

k3am are your savings accounts high yield? Or regular?

Technically. There really are no "high yield" accounts since fed rates are so low. Even cd rates are historically low. Hence why they'll move to a brokerage.

I did just read an article yesterday that talked about the fed increasing the interest rate since the economy is doing so well....... I'm not a financial advisor, but I would think that with the ebb and flow of the economy, that tgere will be high yield prospects available again?

[mrssqueegy]

Nothing yet. All our savings are in our work corporations. The kids will be able to get dividends out of the corps when they are older so their money will come from there. We will also be opening the government education funds too at some point.

[k3am]

Aug 18, 2016 16:46:01 GMT -5 o2girl said:

Aug 18, 2016 16:12:52 GMT -5 k3am said:

Technically. There really are no "high yield" accounts since fed rates are so low. Even cd rates are historically low. Hence why they'll move to a brokerage.

I did just read an article yesterday that talked about the fed increasing the interest rate since the economy is doing so well....... I'm not a financial advisor, but I would think that with the ebb and flow of the economy, that tgere will be high yield prospects available again?

This has been the speculation for a while. Rates went up last year, IIRC wsj prime went from 3.25 to 3.50. A huge rate hike is unlikely, maybe another few basis points. High yield accounts are only ever really high yield when prime is in the 8+% range. (My index I reference at work is WSJ prime, so that's all I've got)

[o2girl]

Aug 18, 2016 17:27:43 GMT -5 k3am said:

Aug 18, 2016 16:46:01 GMT -5 o2girl said:

I did just read an article yesterday that talked about the fed increasing the interest rate since the economy is doing so well....... I'm not a financial advisor, but I would think that with the ebb and flow of the economy, that tgere will be high yield prospects available again?

This has been the speculation for a while. Rates went up last year, IIRC wsj prime went from 3.25 to 3.50. A huge rate hike is unlikely, maybe another few basis points. High yield accounts are only ever really high yield when prime is in the 8+% range. (My index I reference at work is WSJ prime, so that's all I've got)

do you think that it is possible that the fed may increase the rates gradually over the next few years to hit maybe a prime of 5+%? It's really just a curiosity thing..... Mostly because H and I are on the fence about whether to buy a new home now (or a year from now) or wait several years. It may make sense to do the purchase sooner than later if the trend with the fed looks like the interest rates my get higher than 4%. Kwim?

[k3am]

Aug 18, 2016 18:14:35 GMT -5 o2girl said:

Aug 18, 2016 17:27:43 GMT -5 k3am said:

This has been the speculation for a while. Rates went up last year, IIRC wsj prime went from 3.25 to 3.50. A huge rate hike is unlikely, maybe another few basis points. High yield accounts are only ever really high yield when prime is in the 8+% range. (My index I reference at work is WSJ prime, so that's all I've got)

do you think that it is possible that the fed may increase the rates gradually over the next few years to hit maybe a prime of 5+%? It's really just a curiosity thing..... Mostly because H and I are on the fence about whether to buy a new home now (or a year from now) or wait several years. It may make sense to do the purchase sooner than later if the trend with the fed looks like the interest rates my get higher than 4%. Kwim?

I don't think there's a whole lot of certainty. Lots of speculation that there will be another housing bubble, uncertainty in the Chinese markets, etc. I want to say that they may raise it in September, but I'm also thinking I'm mixing up this September with last.

[k3am]

Plus Brexit. Not sure how that will play out either.

[dandb925]

We just set up a 529 plan this week for J. We get a state tax benefit and our goal will be to max out the state benefit each year. Id like to open an account for him at some point as well.

[twocents6708]

We have a savings account for DD. Probably need to get one setup for DS before his birthday.

[starfishy]

We have 529s set up for both kids. My parents also have a 529 plan for the kids. Apparently my Inlaws also have a savings account. Who knows about that. Eye roll.

[appleoatmeal]

Aug 18, 2016 18:24:25 GMT -5 k3am said:

Aug 18, 2016 18:14:35 GMT -5 o2girl said:

do you think that it is possible that the fed may increase the rates gradually over the next few years to hit maybe a prime of 5+%? It's really just a curiosity thing..... Mostly because H and I are on the fence about whether to buy a new home now (or a year from now) or wait several years. It may make sense to do the purchase sooner than later if the trend with the fed looks like the interest rates my get higher than 4%. Kwim?

I don't think there's a whole lot of certainty. Lots of speculation that there will be another housing bubble, uncertainty in the Chinese markets, etc. I want to say that they may raise it in September, but I'm also thinking I'm mixing up this September with last.

I work in finance and look at these numbers a lot. Definitely no certainty, and we are definitely at historic lows. You can get a 30yr fixed mortgage in the mid-3s right now, vs the 9%+ we saw in the late 1980s. In my opinion, rates will increase in the next year, but slowly. You've got time to lock in a decently low rate, but given the supply deficit (lots of demand, little supply), it's a sellers market so I'd constantly be on the lookout. Just my $0.02 😊

[o2girl]

Aug 18, 2016 21:27:51 GMT -5 appleoatmeal said:

Aug 18, 2016 18:24:25 GMT -5 k3am said:

I don't think there's a whole lot of certainty. Lots of speculation that there will be another housing bubble, uncertainty in the Chinese markets, etc. I want to say that they may raise it in September, but I'm also thinking I'm mixing up this September with last.

I work in finance and look at these numbers a lot. Definitely no certainty, and we are definitely at historic lows. You can get a 30yr fixed mortgage in the mid-3s right now, vs the 9%+ we saw in the late 1980s. In my opinion, rates will increase in the next year, but slowly. You've got time to lock in a decently low rate, but given the supply deficit (lots of demand, little supply), it's a sellers market so I'd constantly be on the lookout. Just my $0.02 😊

Thanks for the insight. We just did a refi on our home, but we've been toying with purchasing a larger home with more land...... I guess I'll just watch the housing market really well over the next year and keep my eye on the interest rates.

[annarose]

We have savings account for both girls but we don't put a lot of money in right now. We have money going into our regular savings and we both have 401k's. We are very average middle class and I will do more when we aren't paying 15k or so for daycare. But on the other hand, we just decided to make double payments on H's car to get it paid off in 5 months. After that we will have a nice chunk freed up and I would like to look into Florida College Pre Paid plans. I know H would rather save for house projects but whatever. His argument is that we didn't have college savings from our parents - my argument is that we are supposed to want better for our kids plus my parents still footed a lot of my bills so I rather lock in the rates now.... We will revisit insoon, open enrollment is October - January I think.

[k3am]

I want to prepay my car, but DH isn't on board. It really doesn't save us that much in interest. (We already prepay double the monthly payment, but I'd like to be just done with it.)

I've determined that DH and I budget in different ways - he looks more at how much $$ is in the account, I look more at inflows vs. outflows.

[gahorseygal]

DS has nothing yet. DD has a 529 and savings account. Although we pulled money out of her savings account when everything happened with our house last year. We will prob get DS a 529 since the grandparents like that they can contribute directly to it.