How should you choose a 529 plan?

And how do you compare to the average 401 participant?

You're listening to the weekend personal finance edition of Motley Full Money.

I'm Robert ProCamp. We're doing a trial run of something a bit different for our Saturday

episodes in which, per usual, we feature a guest interview. And this week, I speak with Arthur

Kordiak Mert of Savingforcollege.com about the newly expanded uses of 529s and how to choose

the right plan for you. But then I'll also offer some other personal finance

tidbits and tricks. So let's get things off with three items from the news in a segment we're

calling last week in money. First up, you know, they say that comparison is the thief of joy.

But that doesn't stop us from doing it, especially when it comes to our money. So if you're

curious how your 401K behavior stacks up to the average workers, Banguard

has some answers and it's recently released How America Saves Report based on analysis of all

their retirement plans with the firm in 2024.

So here are some highlights.

The amount you have in your 401 is highly dependent on how long you've been contributing.

So here are the median account balances based on job tenure.

So for people who have been on the job for two to three years, the median account balance

is a bit more than $20,000, four to six years, a bit more than $44,000, seven to nine years,

almost $73,000, and more than 10 years, almost $166,000.

How much are workers contributing to their accounts? Well, the median savings rate is 6.8%

just from the worker, and it's 11.5% when you include the employer match. Now, that's below the 15%

savings rate that really most experts recommend nowadays, which means many folks

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