Saving for College with PSA Fund and a 529 Plan

Have you started saving for college yet? I can’t even believe how much it costs to send a kid to college these days. I was lucky enough (thanks to my generous parents) to not have any college debt when I graduated. My husband was not so lucky. This is my 11-year-old son. He wants to end the student debt crisis in America. Yes, he also wants to play video games all the time and ride his scooter. But he wants to save your family from the financial struggle of putting kids through college. One day he was talking about college with his dad and his dad mentioned how much it costs to go to college and that a lot of times, you pay off that debt well into adulthood. This freaked my son out. Especially because he wants to go to Stanford and he knows the cost could hurt him (and us) financially. He also realized that we have more than one child who will likely go to college. And realized that all of his friends will want to go to college too. He doesn’t want anyone to be left with a huge debt to repay for getting a college education.

So he decided to start a company. PSA Fund is a school supplies company that is going to change the way you save for college. Kids, starting as early as elementary school, can sell the basic school supplies to earning money. When they sign up with PSA Fund, a 529 plan will be opened in their name and money earned will be deposited in to their account for them. From a mom perspective, I love this idea because sometimes it can be hard for kids to realize just how much things cost in the world. Having them start bearing a little responsibility for their college education will help drive home how important that education truly is. Plus, it really helped me get my kids to realize just how much money they were wasting on Pokemon cards when they could be saving for something WAY more important. My husband is a marketing genius and is the right hand man to my son in building this company. He knew that they could create a compelling video to share the message of PSA Fund and saving for college so he gathered his talented friends and they made magic. My son gathered a group of his friends to be in the video with them and spent a day shooting the PSA Fund IndiGoGo video. It was the coolest experience ever and we were so glad to be able to share it with all the kids. They were all so interested in the process. The most amazing part of the day was to see all the kids so well-behaved and following directions. And it was a long day where they had to be super quiet and stay in place. It showed how excited they were to be there supporting my son. I couldn’t be more proud of my son. Not only for coming up with the idea and wanting to help our his friends and family, but because he killed it in front of the camera! You can’t tell from this shot, but there were about 30 kids there for the shoot, plus 3 camera men and 20 parents. He was more professional than I’ve ever seen him (he is 11 after all) and stayed focused the whole time. He did the lines several times until he nailed it and then was ready for the next location. I was so impressed. Although my husband and his friends are truly the experts, they always listened with my son had an idea or suggestion. It truly was a collaboration and the coolest experience ever. And he got to meet one of his favorite skateboarders and YouTubers, Chris Chann, who came down from LA to be his stunt double in the opening scene! Talk about cool! Chris has also been really cool in sharing PSA Fund with his followers which is MUCH appreciated! It was a long day of filming, but the excitement around the company, and what my son wants to do, kept everyone going. But, it costs money to start a company. So my husband and son decided to crowd source the business by starting an IndieGogo campaign. And we need your help. The business plan has been written and all that’s left is to raise funds to get PSA Fund off the ground. They launched the campaign on IndieGoGo last weekend (this picture is from when they hit “launch”!) and already have already raised over $1300. They have a long way to go to reach their goal of $5000. The cool thing about this campaign is that there are several small pledge rewards that are perfect for getting kids involved in raising funds for this project. It’s been really cool seeing small donations made by kids who want to support what my son is doing. Would you consider making a donation or sharing this campaign with other people? It would mean a lot to us!

Make a donation to PSA Fund!

Follow along with us on this journey to make sure every kid has a college savings plan and won’t start their adult life off with tons of debt! Saving for college just got a whole lot more fun.

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