3 Easy Ways to Save for Your Children's College Tuition

So you just had a baby. It's never too soon to start thinking about saving for their future. With college tuition and expenses rising every year, you can start now and help secure a strong financial start to their adulthood. Here are 3 easy steps to help you save for your child's future:

Sign up for a 529 Plan – Each state has at least one form of 529 plan that you can sign up for. What is a 529 plan? A 529 Plan is an education savings plan operated by a state or educational institution designed to help families set aside funds for future college costs. It also provides some tax benefits at the end of the year at tax time. Most plans let you choose the type of saving you want to do either conservative or aggressive. The great thing about most plans is you can set it up to automatically take so much out of your account each month. That way you can gradually build up a little each year and by the time your child goes off to college it will turn out to be quite a nice little nest egg. Check out Iowa's 529 plan here.

Sign up for Upromise – Upromise helps you turn everyday spending into money for college. It’s really easy. You sign up on their site, register your credit card and you are good to go. The registered credit card will get you savings a certain stores, and if you online shop, just do from the links on their site and you will get a percentage back on each purchase. You can also sign up for a Upromise Credit Card that will get you additional savings. After the money starts coming in you can transfer the money to a 529 account or have your money sent to you by check.

Sign up for a Smartypig Account – Smartypig is a great new way to save for college and other things. Just create an account, set up your saving goals and start saving. You earn a great interest on your money and another great feature is the social networking aspect of Smartypig. You can connect your account to Facebook and other networks so that friends and family can help you save. Set up automatic payments and you will have a nice chunk of change waiting for your child come college time.