You know that feeling when you find a $20 you stuck in a book once, forgot about, and randomly come across as you’s flipping through it again?

Well, that kinda happened to me today except it was our financial advisor and a whole college 529 plan that we’d kinda forgotten about.

@patrickrhone That sounds amazing! Hope it was quietly gathering some interest. 🙂

@manton It was! Let’s just say I’m a (tiny) bit more hopeful about having to pay those private college prices now.

@patrickrhone I keep hoping to find I own a small European country that way, you just never know

@writingslowly Check with your realtor. You never know! :-)

@manton OK, just got the details and while I won’t give an exact number let’s just say that the 529 we’d forgotten about combined with the one we already had would be enough to pay full price for one year to any of the schools she’s looking at.

Depending on how much aid she gets it could be the whole boat.

@patrickrhone wow, that’s great! Really speaks to the set-it-and-forget-it investing strategy, no?

@rscottjones Yep. Especially if you set it at a place that is giving a phenomenal rate of return.

While sitting there, that investment made 2.5x the principle (i.e. current value is X+2.5X)

@patrickrhone That’s a blessing! Paying for college these days is no joke!!

@kimberlykg Yep. Currently embarking on filling out the FAFSA and CSS.

A humbling amount of information requested… That said, it’s how we found this 529 plan hiding.

@patrickrhone Excellent! Nice to have some surprise good news.

@patrickrhone Glad to hear it - I thought you were going to say the college fund was the tipping point that disqualified you for aid. That’s the real downer. “Oh, you saved diligently? Why don’t you pay full price, then.”

@danielpunkass Well, we likely might have to pay full price regardless. It depends.

We are weird because we have very low income (pay ourselves, low overhead) but very high assets (property, investments, etc). So, if a school only requires FAFSA it’ll go one way but if they require CSS as well it’ll likely go the opposite.

That said, we are braced for either scenario and have plans in place. This extra money is a happy bonus to add to whatever mix we end up with.