LEAF College Savings is an Easy Way for Friends & Family to Gift Money Towards College

1 Shares

This article was written in partnership with LEAF College Savings. Opinions expressed are my own.

My girls may only be 6 and 3, but the fact that we have not even started saving for college is not smart financially. My husband and I both went to college so we know how important it is and how expensive it can be. Even the state colleges we went to aren’t cheap when you add in living expenses multiplied by 4 years. LEAF College Savings makes saving for college simple, secure and social.
LEAF’s founders set out to make it vastly easier for friends and family
to help parents save for their children’s higher education. LEAF has
built a Software-as-a-Service, web-based
platform which facilitates one time and recurring gifting and employee
contributions to any 529 college savings plan in the U.S.

My extended family knows my girls have plenty of gifts and often want to give us money to save for them for their future. LEAF college savings has just made that better and easier than ever!

Here is how it all works:

Cards can be purchased at www.leafsavings.com in whole dollar amounts between $25 and $1,000.
Recipients (or their parents) can redeem the cards on the LEAF website and transfer the full face value into any 529 college savings plan in the U.S.
Purchasers can send a LEAF card four ways: by email, Facebook post, physical card (which we mail USPS to the purchaser or recipient), or cards can be printed to a sheet of paper.
Purchasers pay a small issuance fee; recipients pay no fee to redeem.
If the recipient doesn?t redeem the card within 90 days, LEAF automatically refunds the face value back to you, the purchaser.
LEAF cards are issued by CBW Bank, Member FDIC, which means the funds are FDIC-insured throughout the process from purchase, redemption and transfer.

Quick highlights about LEAF College Savings Employee Benefit: LEAF’s centralized platform solves the problem of only sponsoring a
single state plan or facing the challenge of disbursing payroll
deductions to multiple plans in order to support state tax deductions
for participating employees. Rather than multiple
payroll codes and endless paperwork, LEAF makes it easy to offer
education savings as a voluntary benefit, and even to add a match.

Other benefits include:

Employees can enroll and make changes at any time online at LEAF’s portal.
Employer dashboard makes the program easy to administer;
Employers, as an option, can offer to match employee contributions one time or recurring.
Supports all 529 plans so employees looking for the tax incentive in their particular state can take advantage of the service.
All funds are FDIC-insured throughout the process from payroll deduction to 529 plan deposit.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s a LEAF gift card?
LEAF education gift cards can be purchased in any dollar amount from $25 to $1,000. Recipients, or their parents, can redeem cards on the LEAF website and transfer the full face value into any college savings 529 plan in the United States. Recipients can redeem the cards even if they don’t have a 529 plan. LEAF will encourage them to open a plan and they can return to the LEAF website to simply transfer the funds later.

What’s a 529 plan?
Enabled by Congress in 1996, college savings 529 plans are created and operated by states or educational institutions. (The number refers to a section of IRS tax code.) 529 plans offer tax advantages and potentially other incentives to make it easier to save for college. There are over a hundred plans sponsored by individual states: some states offer a tax benefit to residents and almost all plans are open to residents of any state.

Does LEAF make recommendations of 529 plans?
No. LEAF does not promote any particular plan or provide any financial advice. From time to time LEAF may engage in co-marketing activities with individual 529 plans, but those activities are clearly presented as offers from the plans themselves. For a list of helpful resources, please click here.

How is my purchase protected?
LEAF College Savings gift cards are issued by CBW Bank, Weir, Kansas. Member FDIC. When you purchase a LEAF gift card, the funds go directly into a custodial account held by the bank in your name (for online purchases). When a recipient, or their parent, creates an account at LEAFsavings.com and redeems the gift, the bank moves the funds into an account held by the bank in the redeemer’s name. Both accounts are insured by the FDIC. Upon instructions from the gift redeemer, the gift funds are transferred into any college savings 529 plan in the U.S.

It is so easy for family and friends to give the “gift of education” and it guarantees the money goes to a college savings plan. It is a great gift idea for Christmas, Bar Mitzvahs, Birthday Parties, Confirmations, Baptisms, Elementary and Middle School graduations and so much more. All those events add up and in several years you might be surprised how much is saved up. Remember this money is good no matter what school they go to and can be used for computers and supplies too.

Connect: You can connect with LEAF College Savings on their website, Facebook and/or @LeafSavings on Twitter.

Here’s your chance to win! How
would you like to win a Card worth $100 for their site! I have one to give away to one lucky contestant!

To enter the giveaway please follow all of the directions below! If you don’t follow the rules, you can’t win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway