Paying for your child's college education - Learn about your options.

Saving for college can be one of the most challenging financial goals and it is important to take advantage of every opportunity to put extra money into your child’s college fund.

Our number one goal is to raise our son to be good adult... AND, to make sure that he is well-educated so he is prepared to have a good future.

As young as Zach is (in the fall he will be going into first grade), I already have his education in mind, particularly, how we'll save for his education. After all, just like any investment, the earlier we start the better.

I started saving a little ($100 a month) several years before he was born, but I have no idea if it will be enough and the money is not being put in a typical education fund, so it may not even be used for that. I may end up needing that money for retirement or another one of life’s many expenses.

At this point I think it is definitely time for us to put together a more definitive plan for Zach’s education. We still have several years to make sure that we have enough money saved, (or enough to at least get us started) for Zach’s education.

Several financing methods for saving for college are available. Some are even tax-deductible.

529 College Savings Plans lets us earn stock-market returns on college savings. Our contributions or investments are set aside and can even grow tax-free.

I like the fact that the money is set aside for the specific purpose, and incurs no penalties if withdrawn for that purpose. Also, several people can contribute to one beneficiary. This is a good vehicle for grandparents and other family member who wish to contribute small amounts of money, (even a $25 or $50 birthday or Christmas check is helpful) to a college fund.

Take advantage of the opportunity to join us on Thursday, July 19th, to get the facts about College Savings Plans. Our seminar starts at 6:00 pm at Hawthorne’s Naperville Branch, located at 1519 North Naper Blvd, in Naperville. Click here to register for the seminar today.

Protect Yourself by Joining us for "Shred-It Day"!

Hawthorne Credit Union will sponsor its 1st annual “Shred-It to Prevent Identity Theft Day” on Saturday May 19th from 10 am to noon, to help raise awareness about the dangers of not properly disposing unwanted personal documents and information. A FREE Identity Theft Seminar will also be offered.

Shred-it day will allow you to bring your personal documents to the credit union to be shredded. Anything that contains drivers license numbers, social security numbers, or any account numbers, really needs to be shredded to protect your identity. The smaller shredders can be very time consuming, so this is our way of saying thank you to the community. You can bring up to two bankers boxes of documents here and have them shredded in a fraction of the time.

We have all heard stories about how incredibly unsafe it is to rip up those credit card offers you get in the mail. I found a particularly interesting story while searching the web and thought it was worth sharing with you. A man, we will call him Rob, took a credit card application that he received in the mail, ripped it up, taped it back together, filled it out using a different address (his father's), using his cell phone as a phone number, and submitted it. A few weeks later his Dad received the credit card.

Is that messed up or what? Can’t you just picture a worker at the bank opening the envelope and entering the data into the system without giving any thought about why the application was torn up and re-taped? Please learn a lesson from this!

If you rip up your credit card offers and throw them away (or even worse, don't rip them up at all), a thief can fish them out of the garbage, tape it back together, fill it out with his/her address and phone number and receive that card at his/her address, and then go shopping.

My advice: SHRED ALL CREDIT APPLICATIONS YOU RECEIVE IN THE MAIL

Some of the ways that ID thieves can get personal information include:
* Rummaging through your trash, the trash of businesses, or public trash dumps in a practice called "dumpster diving." * Stealing a wallet or purse * Stealing personal information found in the home. * Seventy-two percent of the information involved in identity theft is stolen offline by accessing paper documents.

Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America, with nineteen people becoming a victim every minute. Nearly ten million people fall prey to identity theft each year, costing them over six-thousand dollars on average. Don’t let yourself fall victim to this growing crime. Protect yourself by joining us at Hawthorne on May 19th for Shred-it Day!


If the response is good, you can count on future Shred It Days at Hawthorne!