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Just was wondering if I should be following the stock market closely or what, depending on saving for my kid's college fund. I am not a stock market person. I opened up a 529 plan in my state and plan to put money in it every month. My child is only 20 months old at this time, and figured this is a good time to start. Only $1000 in the account to start.
I chose a "moderate growth" portfolio in my account. There is also an "aggressive growth" portfolio there but it seemed like too many stocks. Regardless, this "moderate" growth is still 50% stocks and 50% bonds. It is supposed to be more bonds as the child ages in middle-high school.
With the stock market going down, etc, the value of the account is much less than the $1000 I put into it. Should I be following this or just keep adding money every month? Switch to mostly bonds or just keep it as is since my child is so young? Should I even be checking the account's value this often? I think I am just checking since it's such a "new" account and I'm trying to get used to saving for a 529.
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
9,776 posts, read 15,781,748 times
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Stop checking it! Keep your money where you decided to put. It has 18 years to grow. Daily, monthly or even yearly fluctuations do not matter at this point. I wouldn't worry much about it until your kid is 13 and you're 5 years out from college.
This site will help with allocation ratio. Just ignore the multitude of small cap, mid cap, etc. You want just 2 funds... an S & P 500 index fund and a total bond market index fund. https://gps.ricedelman.com/
Also this site.... https://personal.vanguard.com/us/fun...ion?reset=true
With a big 17 year time horizon you can afford to take more risk than 50/50 but it's up to you.
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