Even if you understand the importance of saving for college, it can be challenging to build a savings plan into your monthly budget. These tips on saving can help you make progress toward your goals—and might even inspire you to think of other ways to save. And for general college savings guidance, watch our Saving for College webinar, in which you’ll learn the reasons you should save for college, the best ways to save, how saving affects your chances for financial aid, and much more.

Set Attainable Goals and Strategies to Reach Them

Set yourself up for success by striving for realistic goals.

• Set a clear goal that you can attain within your particular timeframe.
• Start saving as early as possible so that your money can grow over time.
• Add saving for college to your regular budget, like saving for retirement and paying your household bills.
• Set up regular, automatic transfers to contribute to your college savings account so that you don’t accidentally forget to contribute.
• Use MEFA’s College Planning Tool to set up a personalized savings strategy for each child in your family, including how much to save each month.
• Set an annual reminder (perhaps during the summer break) to sit down and review how much you’ve saved for college and determine whether you can increase your contributions or need to change your investment strategy.
• Keep saving when your student enters college. The earnings will continue to grow tax free as long as you use them for your child’s college expenses (they can be used for grad school too), and if your state has a tax deduction on college savings (like Massachusetts), you’ll continue to receive that benefit.

Reduce Your Expenses

Eliminating unnecessary costs can free up funds for your college savings account.

• Use a notebook, spreadsheet, or smart phone app to track personal and household spending for a month.
• Identify expenses that you can eliminate and redirect that money to increase your college savings.
• Review your monthly credit card, cell phone, bank account, and utility statements for any monthly extraneous fees that you can eliminate.
• Avoid impulse purchases. Make a shopping list before you leave the house and stick to it.
• Use coupons, buy items on sale, and shop online for better deals.

Take Advantage of Extra Income

When new earnings come in, direct it toward your college savings.

• If you receive a bonus, tax refund, or other unscheduled income, dedicate a portion of it to your college savings.
• Collect all of the loose change you can find around the house and deposit it in your college fund.
• When a regular expense comes to an end, such as daycare or a car loan, immediately redirect those monthly funds into your college savings account.
• Clean out your closets, junk drawers, basement, and garage, and consider selling items that you no longer use through a consignment shop or online.
• Get paid for your opinion on online survey sites. Check out Swagbucks and i-Say to get started.
• Call your cell phone company and ask for a lower rate. You’ll do even better if you call prepared with a rate you found on another provider’s website.

Get Your Family & Friends Involved

Make saving for college a group effort

• Ask your child to save a certain portion of his or her allowance or earnings from after-school jobs.
• For special occasions like birthdays, ask family members and friends to contribute to your child’s college savings plan. The U.Fund allows account owners to set up a gifting page through which family and friends can contribute directly to a student’s account.
• Take advantage of Massachusetts’s Babysteps program, which provides a free $50 seed deposit into the U.Fund 529 account of every child within the first year of birth or adoption.
• Know that multiple savers, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and family friends, can open accounts for the same student.

Make sure to utilize an account designed for college savings.

• The U.Plan is a prepaid tuition program that allows you to lock in tuition and fees at over 70 participating Massachusetts public and private colleges.
• The U.Fund is a market-based 529 investment plan that lets you invest in portfolios of mutual funds with professional investment management.
• A Coverdell Education Savings Account lets you save for qualified education expenses at elementary schools, secondary schools, and colleges or universities. Distributions are tax free as long as they’re used for qualified education expenses.
• Find out how the benefits and differences of these college savings accounts stack up against each other in this comparison chart.

As you continue to save, stay on track with MEFA. We share savings tips, calculators, and helpful resources on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and LinkedIn, so be sure to like us and follow us. And we’re always including key information in our emails, so sign up for those if you haven’t already. We look forward to guiding you through every step of college planning.