Believe it or not, you can save money by spending money. One way to do this, to save money for college, is through a clever company called UPromise. The UPromise premise is that as you spend money you'd normally spend anyway -- charging fairly routine purchases such as cereal, Kleenex, light bulbs, online services, hamburgers, jeans, and electronics to your credit card (which is perhaps a spiffy Motley Fool Visa) -- you can rack up little rebates that get socked away in a 529 savings account for educational expenses.
These little rebates add up quickly. Some examples:
At PFBlog.com, the blogger in residence recently noted how he saved some $34 on a subscription to People magazine thanks to UPromise. One of UPromise's participating vendors is Magazines.com, which kicks a 30% rebate into savers' accounts.
The Arizona Republic reported on a Scottsdale couple who "have amassed about $1,000 over the past two years in the college accounts of their two young sons entirely from rebates on items such as groceries, gasoline, entertainment, utilities, airline tickets, general credit-card purchases and even their monthly home-security bill."
Participating vendors include Bed Bath & Beyond
You can even grab a rebate of up to $3,000, if you buy or sell a home through Century 21, Coldwell Banker, or ERA. (Permit us to offer some additional tips on how to save money when buying or selling a home.)
As you save for your young ones' future schooling, get them thinking about how to best manage their own money by sending them (or any teens you care about) to our Teens and Their Money nook. Alternatively, consider giving them a copy of our Motley Fool Investment Guide for Teens book.
Learn more about UPromise at Upromise.com. You can get lots of additional tips on paying for college in our College Savings Center. Our Paying for College discussion board is a good place to ask questions you may have, and our book, The Motley Fool's Guide to Paying for School by Robert Brokamp, is also a handy resource.
Longtime Fool contributor Selena Maranjian owns shares of Time Warner.
