Saving for college

One of the keys to our savings last year was "never seeing the money." Meaning, we wrote out a budget with what we had, and ANYTHING that was left over from that was immediately transfered online to savings. Yes, there were some months where my calculations were a little closer than I would have liked, but we would not have had the money otherwise to help us when we really needed it.

We are trying get our son in daycare for a final 3rd day a week. My contract work has picked up and this past week I had several near-all nighters to get the work done on time. Instead of just absorbing the money that we would spend on his daycare, I have decided that we are going to begin adding to his wooefully underfunded college savings account each time he doesn't go to daycare. So yesterday this is exactly what I did. The beauty of online banking, assuming you keep religious track of it, is that its painless and easy and you never miss the funds.

While I know the money we put in this week won't even buy a single textbook (assuming they still have them when he goes to college), its better to have that growing for him now, since it would have been spent on him anyway had daycare been an option, than using it for books, magazines or a fancy dinner we don't need.