On Friday, Crystal guest posted about a topic that in the four years of writing Simple Mom, I haven’t dared touch with a ten-foot pole: credit cards.

But she was willing, and I love and share most of her sentiments, so I’m honored that she tackled the somewhat eggshell-walking topic. And after reading the many comments, it sounds like it is indeed a tricky subject.

Those of you who shun credit cards do so vehemently, and sincerely want others to see your perspective. Those who do use credit cards—and pay them off in full each month—might feel the need to justify their perspective. And those who feel up to their ears in credit card debt probably feel uncomfortable saying anything. So they stay silent.

So I thought I’d tiptoe around my opinion on the matter, without going in to too many details.
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Written by money contributor Charlie Park.

A couple of years ago, I was reading an article about money and sending kids to college. “Blah blah blah,” it went (more or less), “and you should stick the money in a 529.”

“Oh, man,” I remember thinking. “A ‘529’? What the heck is that?” I got really concerned, and looked into it. I found some websites, created by out-of-breath journalists, telling me that college costs were rising, that I’d need to sell my kidneys on the black market to afford tuition for my kids, and that because I didn’t have a 529, I didn’t like my kids and clearly wanted them to have a terrible life.

I got so concerned, in fact, I opened TWO of these mysterious “five-two-nines,” despite the fact that — at the time — I didn’t actually even have any kids.

Clearly that was the right call, right? I mean, I liked my kidneys. And I liked my non-existent kids. And surely investing in their education was what I needed to do, right? Well … maybe not.

Today we’re going to look at this mysterious creature, the 529, and its cousin, the ESA. What are they? Does your family need one? Is one of them better than the other? How do you set one up? When should you set one up? And if you don’t have one, does that mean you secretly don’t like your kids?

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Written by money management contributor Charlie Park of Pear Budget.

When our daughter Lucy was born, her grandparents and a few friends of the family gave her savings bonds, to be used for college, or music lessons, or other Good Things. They were generous, to be sure, but they unintentionally gave us a bit of a burden along with their gift.

I mean, think about new parents — stumbling around in a sleepless haze, lucky if they can manage to put on pants right — who decides it’s a good idea to give them pieces of paper that SHOULD NOT BE LOST BECAUSE THEY ARE WORTH MONEY?

Recently, I was going through some old files — bills, insurance records, and other random documents. As I went through them, I saw a vaguely familiar manila folder, with thick red marker on it: IMPORTANT!!! DO NOT LOSE!!!

In a brief moment of sanity, I had apparently put bonds in a special envelope. Once that moment passed, though, I took a more typical course of action, and tossed the envelope in a stack of other papers. Brilliant.

So I’ve now unearthed these bonds, and I’m not really sure what to do with them. Do I have to mail them in somewhere? How do I trade them in to get money? And how much money can I get for them? Or do I have to wait for some specific date in the future before I can do anything with them? Agh. So many questions.

I was really tempted to just shove them back in the stack of papers and “deal with it later.” But I stuck with it, found out some neat stuff, and wanted to share it with you.

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