Discover the tips and strategies that will help you achieve your retirement goals.

I'm your host, James Canole, and this is the podcast dedicated to helping you retire well.

It all starts right here on Ready for Retirement. for retirement.

Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Ready for Retirement.

I'm your host, James Knoll.

Today's episode is all about 529 plans and specifically how to most effectively withdraw money from 529 plans. So we will give a general

overview just for those of you who aren't familiar, how do 529 plans work? But the major focus of

today's episode will be as college is approaching, what's the most effective way to draw money

from those accounts, especially in the light of ups and downs of the market. Now, this question was, or this episode, is based upon a listener question.

This listener's name is Sherry.

And Sherry says this.

She says, hi, James, I really enjoy your show.

You are skilled at breaking the concepts down into easily digestible bites.

When I found you last year, I binge listen to every episode.

Thank you, Sherry.

She thinks on to say, we have a 529 plan question. We try to front load it as much as possible,

so we haven't contributed it much in many years. Normally, we are boring buying,

buy and hold investors of passive index funds. However, my son will be a freshman in the fall of

2022, so we will need the funds shortly. College will be approximately

$40,000 per year. The current balance is $149,000. December of 2021, the balance was $158,000. With the world

so uncertain right now and the funds needed so soon, would you cash out the balance or half of the

balance to hold

...