When we had our first kid, we opened a 529 plan in the state of Maryland. The tax benefits on the front side are are minimal (you don’t get much of a deduction) but it grows tax free as long as you use the expenses on education. It’s a pretty solid deal and now that we have three kids, we increase our chances at least one of them goes to college. 🙂
If you don’t know 529 plans too well, my friend Robert at The College Investor has a great guide.
529 Plans: The Ultimate Guide to College Savings Plans [The College Investor] – “Nearly every state in the United States has some type of 529 plan to help families save for college. These plans are designed as tax-advantaged accounts – which give you tax benefits to save for college.”
Speaking of kids, a little over a week ago, I was excited to watch the SpaceX launch. I was trying to explain to our kids how amazing it was that a private company was in charge of sending human beings into space. They got excited about it because everyone loves space and I’m tempted to show them Apollo 13 sometime in the near future. We’ll see when that might be but I remember loving that movie.
If you get jazzed up about space too, you might enjoy this article about the Voyager mission:
Voyager: Inside the world’s greatest space mission [BBC Future] – “In 1977, two spacecraft started a mission that has redefined our knowledge of the Solar System – and will soon become our ambassadors on a journey into the unknown. BBC Future looks at their legacy, 40 years after launch.”
The power of the transmitter on Voyager is around 12 watts and peaks at 20 watts – equivalent to your refrigerator light bulb!
Kidnapping: A Very Efficient Business [The New York Review of Books] – “In Argentina in the early 1970s, leftist guerrillas started snatching executives of multinational companies and demanding ransoms. This culminated in the payment of $60 million to the Montoneros, a Peronist guerrilla group, for the release of the brothers Juan and Jorge Born, executives at the grain-exporting firm Bunge & Born and the sons of its president. The ransom seems noteworthy for its heft—at about $275 million in today’s money, it stands as the largest one paid in a conventional kidnapping case.”
How’s that for a side hustle?