Upromise College Savings program offers everyday savings on thousands of companies from retailers to grocery stores for future college expenses.
Simply register your credit cards and grocery cards, and that’s it. You’ll begin to earn savings from over 10,000 merchants once Upromise confirms your registration.
Put your savings towards your child’s college education expenses, pay your own expenses, or donate your earnings to another Upromise member.
I also recommend opening a 529 Account in conjunction with your Upromise college savings program. Why? Because you’ll earn interest on your savings by investing in the provided Vanguard Mutual Funds.
It’s a care free way to start savings for a college education, and requires no additional effort other than registering your plastic and spending money as you normally would.
Pros on Upromise
- Earn Cash back on normal shopping purchases
- Invest your savings in a mutual fund, 529, and Educational Savings Plan
- Prepare for your child’s future by start a college fund as early as possible
Cons on Upromise
- Upromise 529 only offers limit fund options (currently use Vanguard Funds)
Overall, Upromise is a great college savings program, and so far is the best one available. Best of all, it’s free! This concludes my upromise review.
Sign up for Upromise
Have you ever considered writing a post on all the different type of college savings accounts available? That would be a really helpful article. This one is helpful too. Thank you.
Recommend Best 529s: College Savings Iowa and New York’s 529 College Savings Program - Direct Plan
Upromise is OK in my opinion, until you try to get your money out.
The only apparent way to get your money is through a 529 plan, but most have high expense and annual fees. For example, most of the listed 529s have a $15-30 annual account fee PLUS 0.3 - 1.5% expense fees. If you”ve only $1000 invested, the market has to return 7.5% just for you not to lose money (assuming $30/$1000 = 3%, 1.5% expense, 3% inflation rate).
But, you can do better. You just need to pick the best fund, but Upromise won’t tell you what’s best, they just try to push their own high fee funds.
The way I found the best funds was to review all the plans Upromise Investments services (see the Upromise 529 FAQ, https://upinvestments.s.upromise.com/upinv/8106.4.do#212 ) and then look each up at savingforcollege.com
(http://www.savingforcollege.com/compare_529_plans/index.php?plan_ids%5B%5D=18&plan_ids%5B%5D=37&plan_ids%5B%5D=39&mode=Compare&page=compare_plans&plan_type_id= ). By digging through the fees and such, IMHO you’ll find that Iowa and New York offer the best deals for non-residents - No annual fee, low total expense ratio, and Vanguard funds. Your results may vary.