Portfolio manager bought Prepaid for “simplification” & “foundation”
Stella Heintz may only be 10, but she’s all about seizing the day. She loves to play LOL Surprise dolls with her 5-year-old sister, hug the new best friends she just made on the playground, and dream big dreams.
“At one point, Stella thought she’d be five different things when she grows up,” said her dad, Dustin Heintz. “She has big goals for her future.”
Dustin and his wife, Nancy Blum-Heintz, knew from the moment their girls were born that they would start saving immediately for their college education. Dustin is a portfolio manager for the Florida State Board of Administration, which invests Florida’s pension plan assets, and Nancy is a senior consultant for a site location advisory firm.
“Being a finance person, I have tremendous respect for the power of compounding interest: The earlier you do something, whether it’s retirement or saving for education, the better off you are,” he said. “I knew there was just no better time than the present. Eighteen years is going to go by far too quickly, so how are you going to prepare for that? I think Florida Prepaid is a wonderful way to do that.”
For Stella, they purchased a 4-Year Florida University Plan at the first Open Enrollment opportunity, which was just a few months after she was born. When Annabelle was born, they were still paying for Stella’s plan, so he and Nancy bit off a smaller chunk by purchasing two 1-Year Florida University Plans.
A few years later, when Stella’s plan was entirely paid off, they purchased two more 1-Year University Plans to complete Annabelle’s package.
“If you have the wherewithal to do it, you should do it immediately,” Dustin said.
Dustin Heintz and his wife, Nancy Blum-Heintz, bought Florida Prepaid College Plans for their daughters Stella, 10, and Annabelle, 5, during the first Open Enrollment period after the girls were born.
As a portfolio manager, Dustin acknowledges he could have opened and managed investment plans for his daughters, but they went with Florida Prepaid for several reasons. First, the program has a reputation for being sound and trustworthy. (Indeed, they even received a refund in recent years after a pricing plan adjustment.)
“It really comes down to simplification,” he said. “When I think about my daughters’ education plans, I want to start with that rock-solid foundation, a really solid base. I feel really good that we’ve taken the first step. And we’ve removed what could be a huge unknown — college tuition — and have locked in the cost with our Prepaid Plans.
Dustin said he’ll build on that foundation soon by adding a 529 Savings Plan for each daughter.
“You do feel good about it, but you want to feel even better,” he said. “This isn’t retirement where you’re trying to become a millionaire. In a world when we talk about how much student loan debt is out there, this is a way of minimizing or even eliminating that.”
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