Which 529 plan?

[BayAreaFrugal]

I'm looking to open up a 529 plan (yes, I max out all tax advantaged accounts already) with the unspecific goal of saving some but not a ton of money for my kids' college. I live in CA so don't get a tax deduction, which means I can shop around for the best 529 plan. But I'm having analysis paralysis with all the options out there. At this point I'm thinking of just going with the Vanguard 529 plan (Nevada) simply because most of my investments are already with Vanguard and it's simpler to have all my accounts in one place. Reasonable logic?

[WSUCoug1994]

That is what I did.  Live in the Bay Area - went with the Vanguard (Nevada) 529.  I struggle more with if a 529 plan is actually the best idea but that is a different topic for a different day.

[BayAreaFrugal]

Yea, I've been debating whether to open a 529 plan or not, but I settled on opening one and just using it for things like birthday gifts and a place to throw some extra money every now and then.

[WSUCoug1994]

My kids are 3 and 1 and we are putting $6K a year towards each college fund (utilizing the data from estimates that college will be $200K-ish).  I have no idea if that number is accurate/realistic or not.  I understand all of the options outside of college expenses it can be used for but the 10% extra penalty is hard to stomach on top of the income tax hit if we don't use it for educational purposes or decide not to pass it on to someone else.  We are clearly early on in this process but we might decide against putting all of their earmarked funds into the 529.

[insufFIcientfunds]

I do the self managed age based vanguard plan in my state. I really like it. It's grown really well and when people just do not know what to get the kids I send them an invitation code and they can contribute directly to it, so they can get the tax deduction (my state offers that.) Then I have the kids make a thank you card and tell the person what they want to be when they grow up.

If you have family/friends/others in states that do offer a tax deduction and they chose to contribute to that instead of buying the child a widget they will only play with a few times, that could help boost their savings and give a tax offset to someone else.