I never made it to College. I didn’t even graduate high school in 1996 like I should have. I know, shame on me. But I did go to night school and earned my diploma in 1999. Still being a full time mom is what I was, then got a job at a factory. I made a College plan when I was a teenager but never had a good guidance counselor help me with College planning so I was never serious. I knew my parents couldn’t afford college either and I wasn’t smart enough for scholarships.

I was recently introduced to the Gerber Life Insurance site and since I am a college student now and will have one of my own in about six years, I read quite a bit on the site. I always thought it was just another supplemental life insurance. I had no idea it was an investment type of program that is meant to help your child pay for college. I know for myself, my college classes at a community college cost $550 EACH not including books and facility fees. I live out of district to any college because I am not within 15 miles. My tuition for this semester is $2,202.00, my books are around 400, parking pass for the semester is $300, and GAS for the 30 mile each way trek was upwards of 6-$700 last semester. So I can say its cheaper than a university but not much. Gerber’s plan is to have you put away money each month, about 5o dollars, starting when your kids are very small, and then when they are 18 you get back your investment plus a couple grand to equal $10,000. And of course if you can knock back more than the small amount, say you have the ability to pay the full amount of around 700 a month, your child will get $150,000, your investment will have been around 134k and Gerber adds $15k to the pot.

I think its a neat idea. I don’t trust banks or stocks or real estate to invest money when I am ready to start saving up so I am seriously considering Gerber. The site has all the questions and answers and all I needed was a good calculator to do the figures and they have one right on the site when you go to read about the Smart Start college plan you have a big box that looks like this!

Put in your kids age and it takes you to the calculator where you can type in the amount you want to pay and tells you what you can get. I do hope I can save some money back for my kids so they don’t have to take out student loans so much. College is fun and I wish I would have gone when I was younger but I am sure I would have wished my parents had saved up some money to help me too I did make it to college in the end even if I am in my early thirties!

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