Use UPromise To Help Send Your Kid To College
Why Use UPromise?
We’ve reached the point where college isn’t really something you just consider doing. Now days there’s not much you can do without some type of college degree or formal trade training. The majority of people do it, so having that diploma doesn’t give you the extra umph for a job. It just puts you on the even playing field.
Growing up I knew that college was never a question, it was a given. I always laughed when people asked me if I was the first in my family to go to college. Not only did both my parents have college degrees, but my mother’s father has his masters and my grandmother’s mom went to normal school to get her teaching degree (the same college that I got my teaching degree from). You can see why there was an emphasis on going to college in my family.
The problem is that price of college is out of control. Today’s kids will spend years working to make enough money to pay off their loans. Many will not make enough to even make the payment, so they will go back to school to get their masters to hopefully get a better paying job which will cause them to have even bigger student loans. It’s just a vicious cycle! I was lucky and had a family that helped cover my education costs. Now I did work very hard to get a lot of scholarships, but they covered the rest. I ended school with a degree and no loans. Now I can’t find a teaching job, but that’s another story. It’s a relief to not need to worry about student loans, and I want that for Nick and any other kids we may have. Five years ago we received a large amount of money. It was an inheritance that Jason got from his grandfather. I took $5,000 of it and put it into a high yielding CD to be used as college money for any future kids we would have (Nick wasn’t even a thought yet). In that five years we’ve made some good money on it, but let’s be honest here. By the time Nick goes to college (thankfully many years away) that’s not likely to cover much, so I’ve known that I needed to help add onto the fund. That’s where UPromise has come into play.
What is UPromise and How Does it Work?
UPromise is an online site that you can sign up for. Then you can do things to make some extra money that can then be used to help pay for your child’s college tuition. There are many different ways that you can earn money, but mostly they all have to do with shopping. When shopping online you can earn a percentage back from your purchase. You can link up your credit card and then you’ll get a percentage back when you use your credit card to shop at certain brick and motor locations. You can also get certain amounts of money back by downloading grocery coupons to store cards. When you buy the grocery products the amount of the coupon will be deposited into your account. You can also get money from booking travel and using your linked up credit card to eat out. One way I love is that you can get a UPromise credit card. There is no fee for it and you get cash back on all purchases you make and the money goes into your UPromise account. Best of all you can share your account with family members so they to can help earn college money for your child by shopping online too!
What Can I Do with the Money?
Once your UPromise account has started earning money you can choose what to do with it. Through them you can set up a savings account where your money will automatically get deposited. You can also use them to set up a 529 savings plan, or you can choose to leave it and get checks when you need them to pay off students loans and tuition. I’m thinking about withdrawing what we have made, as a check, so I can buy into the Michigan college savings plan that will let me purchase credit hours for Nick at today’s rates, but I haven’t decided yet.
I know that families all have different views on how much help they want to give their kids for college. I personally want to be able to help Nick as much as possible. Putting a lot of money away for him isn’t an option right now, but by using UPromise I am able to put some away.
I think this is great. We didn’t do any intentional savings for college so it’s a good thing our daughter will probably be getting a hefty scholarship, otherwise…well I don’t even want to think about it. I should really sign up right now anyway, and then maybe what I earn can go toward extras she needs.