How to Create Huge Tax Savings Funding Your Kid’s College (& FIRE on Time!)

BiggerPockets Money Podcast

BiggerPockets

Investing, Education, Business

4.6 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Paying for college is one of the biggest financial hurdles families face—even as you’re chasing or approaching FIRE. What’s the smartest way to save for higher education while also securing your financial future? Scott, Mindy, and Amberly are breaking it all down on today’s episode! Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Money podcast! There are several ways to fund your child’s education, and if you’re actively building wealth, you likely have even more options at your disposal. We’ll show you how to find “free” money through government grants and scholarships, but since these could be off the table for those who are pursuing financial independence, we’ll also compare popular college savings accounts—like the 529 college savings plan and UTMA (Uniform Transfer to Minors Act) account. If you want to limit your tax liability, one option reigns supreme! We know this is a personal decision, and you shouldn’t be guilted into one direction or the other. Whether you’re saving for your own children, your grandkids, or just curious about how to balance college tuition costs with FIRE goals, we’ll equip you with a practical roadmap for funding education on your own terms—one that keeps you on track to retire early! In This Episode We Cover How Scott, Mindy, and Amberly are funding their children’s college education The pros and cons of 529 college savings plans versus UTMA accounts How to uncover “free money” to help pay for college tuition costs State-specific tax benefits to keep in mind when contributing to a 529 plan Securing your financial future before saving for higher education And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/money-639 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	college debt and paying off that debt is a huge part of many of our guests' money stories.
0:05.5	Scott, Amberley, and I each have two children, although they vary widely in age.
0:10.9	Amberley and Scott have kiddos who are under three years old, while I have one heading
0:14.8	to college in August and another heading there in another three years. Want to hear the kicker?
0:19.8	I technically don't have anything set
0:22.5	aside for my kids college. Today, we're talking about paying for college and several different
0:27.3	ways to go about it. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My
0:36.1	name is Mindy Jensen. And with me today, not only is my college planning co-host Scott Trench, but also Amberley
0:42.5	Grant is joining us too. Thanks, Mindy. Great to be here. We look forward to laying out the
0:46.0	textbook approach to planning for college, for your children, college savings. Bigger Pockets is the
0:51.4	goal of creating one million millionaires. You are in the right place if you want to get your financial house in order because we truly believe
0:55.9	financial freedom is attainable for everyone no matter when or where you're starting, including
0:59.7	if you want to fund the maximum, the most expensive college education that exists for children
1:06.7	at any point in the future. Amberly, thank you so much for joining us today. We look forward to learning from you. You are an expert on the FAFSA and the 529 and all the tools for saving for college. Thanks for joining us again today. Thank you. I had the privilege of having to experience all of this firsthand and so and working in the financial aid office. So I'm quite versed.
1:28.5	All right. Before we get into the show, I've got a quick question. How many hours did you
1:32.3	spend last month, listeners, chasing down your rent payments, sorting through piles of receipts
1:37.2	or filling in spreadsheets? If the answer is way too many, then I need to tell you about
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1:49.6	Base lien automates your rent collection and uses AI-powered bookkeeping to auto-tag transactions for instant cash flow visibility and reporting without doing any manual expense tracking.
1:59.5	Plus, they've got a ton of other features like recurring payments, multi-user accounts,
2:02.8	and free wires to save you more time and money.
	...

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