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Originally Posted by Scanner
Males love control over accounts. Females would like a pension. Just a sexist observation.
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Hmm, I guess we're the exception to that rule. He prefers not to think about investing ever if he can help it, and prefers more conservative investments. I read a lot of personal finance websites and articles, and can tolerate plenty of risk if I have a long time frame. In case you're confused because I use the word "partner" to describe my spouse, he's a man and I'm a woman.
That's why we've chosen the college savings combination that we have. When we were first starting out saving for our son's education, we had a small lump of money to put somewhere. We decided to split it up and put half of it in my name and half of it in my partner's name.
The half that is in his name is in a guarranteed tuition plan. I would never have chosen that if it were just me, but it keeps the peace. Before I agreed to it, I made sure that we could use the $$ to send our son to any college, in state or out. To avoid account maintenance fees on that account, we have to put in $25/month.
In my own name, I opened an investment 529, first in my state and then after I got annoyed with their crappy online interface, I moved it to Fidelity. When our son gets birthday checks from the grandparents or we have extra cash to throw toward his education, I put it in that account.
Everybody's happy. My partner gets a conservative investment with auto-deposits so he doesn't have to think about it, and I get to have a low-fee investment account with access to all the mutual funds I could want.
That's why I recommended opening a second account that you can manage yourself. I agree you should be happy she's taking some initiative in this savings goal and let her keep the workplace 529, but I think it would be foolish to put ALL your college money there when you could keep the peace AND control some portion of the money yourself.