Workbook — College · Created October 5, 2026 · 2 min read
529 Savings Tracker
What you saved, what the market added, and whether it will be enough.
A rising 529 balance mixes two things that are easy to confuse: the money you put in and the money the market added. This workbook keeps them apart, then projects the balance to the first tuition bill and compares it with what the years of attendance are likely to cost.
What This Workbook Does
- A balance history for each child, one row per snapshot, with contributions since the last snapshot recorded separately from the balance.
- A Growth column that shows what the market did, apart from what you saved.
- A projection tab: years until the first bill, ongoing contributions, expected return and education cost inflation.
- The projected balance, projected total cost, share of cost covered and the extra monthly saving that would close the gap.
Contributions are treated as arriving at the end of each year, which is slightly conservative if you contribute monthly, and the cost of attendance is inflated year by year so the later years are priced correctly.
How to Use It
- On the Balances tab, add a row each time you check the accounts — ideally on the same date each year.
- Enter contributions added since the previous snapshot separately from the balance.
- On the Projection tab, set the years until the first tuition bill, the contribution you will actually keep making and an expected return.
- Enter the all-in cost of one year today for the kind of school you are planning around.
- Read the share of cost covered and the extra monthly saving that would close the gap.
- Lower the return assumption as the date approaches; what is defensible twelve years out is optimistic at two.
What It Will Not Do
The projection is a straight-line estimate. Real returns arrive unevenly, and a poor run of returns in the last few years before college does more damage than the average suggests — the reason many families move to something more conservative as the date gets close.