February is already here. How are your New Year’s resolutions going? The resolutions that have the greatest impact are those that form useful habits that we no longer have to think about—they just happen.
If you resolved to save money, most financial experts advise saving something and saving often. Having a savings goal is certainly a good thing, but the real celebration comes when saving becomes an automatic practice. By setting up your savings with automatic contributions, your funds move into a dedicated place. This accomplishes your mission, and you now have a useful habit. Apply this same useful habit to education savings by investing in my529, Utah’s official 529 educational savings plan. 529 funds can help pay for qualified education expenses like tuition, books, computers, and other supplies for traditional and technical colleges. Savings can also be used for K-12 tuition expenses, apprenticeships and student loan repayments up to certain amounts. Automating those contributions makes saving even easier. It is simple to set up automatic contributions online through your my529 account. You remove the burden of remembering how often and how much to deposit into your education savings. A recent Forbes article stated that more parents now plan and save for their children’s schooling. Many families, though, are still caught off guard by the high costs of postsecondary education. The sooner you can start saving and automate your contributions, the more opportunity your account has to grow. Your employer may be able to help you set up an automatic, after-tax contribution directly from your paycheck into your my529 account. Check with your employer to ensure they have the ability to offer multiple payroll direct deposits, and then enroll in this option through an online account at my529. When funds are contributed into my529 automatically, the money is less likely to be spent on other things and has more opportunity to grow. This is one resolution you can mark off your list early this year. Click HERE to learn more about how to receive a $10 savings match during Utah Saves Week!
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In case you haven't heard, it's Utah Saves Week! Also America Saves Week!
America Saves Week has been an annual event since 2007. It is held the last week of February and focuses on helping people save money. Most people would like to put more money in savings, but it can be daunting to get started. The americasaves.org website is a great place to start. You can set savings goals and sign up for email and text reminders to help keep you on track. Consider these savings tips: KristiLyn Wilkinson, M.S., AFC Candidate You might be familiar with this phrase if you have read Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I’m here to tell you that revolving savings accounts are pretty life-changing as well! A revolving savings account is the magic that keeps irregular expenses from derailing your budget. One of the main obstacles to budgeting that I hear from people is that they have expenses that don’t happen every month, that are larger in nature, and throw off their planning. For most people, we tend to live our financial lives month-to-month. Your rent or mortgage is due once a month, your car payment is due once a month, you pay for Netflix and piano lessons once a month, etc. You get the picture. But every month it seems like there are some expenses like a birthday, Christmas, annual insurance bill, college tuition, etc. that come creeping in. Guest Blogger Kari Ure, M.S. USU Extension Assistant Professor Save money. Build an emergency fund. Prepare for a rainy day. Get out of debt. These are great goals, but i t can be challenging to know how to manage financial resources to make financial progress. Small, consistent changes in money spending can have big results.
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