Upromise

I'm sure many of you have seen this program at your local Publix supermarket. They do a great job promoting it. I grabbed a flyer one day months ago and put off joining until late in November. Man, am I glad I joined before the Christmas Shopping season!

If you are not familiar with the program, visit www.upromise.com as soon as you finish reading this post.

Upromise is a program developed to help you save for college through your normal everyday spending. You can register your Kroger Plus Card, Publix Card (they have one specifically for Upromise), your Harris Teeter card, etc, etc. Then you can register your Debit Card and any time you use that card to eat out at participating restaurants, a small % of what you spend will be deposited in your Upromise account as savings for college. BUT, the most productive way to save is by shopping online through the Upromise site. It links to Macys.com, Kohls.com, Shutterfly, SnapFish, Vista Print (just to name a few) and any time you shop on those sites, a % of what you spend is deposited into your Upromise account for college savings.

As of today, Dave and I have saved over $20 for Hope's college fund! We can link our account to her 529 Savings Plan so the money is invested as well. The most amazing thing about the program is you are saving without even thinking about it! You can ask your family to link to your account so every time grandma and grandpa spend money, they can save for college as well!

The program is free and although $20 in one month doesn't seem like much, over 18 years it will add up. The thought of paying for college in 18 years is so overwhelming. At least this little effort takes some of the pressure off.

I hope it works well for all you mommies out there! Now you have a very noble excuse to purchase things online!

Happy Shopping. . .I mean, College Saving!