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$50 Target Gift Card for 529 Plan

It’s Free Money [1] Friday! I’m a roll with 529 plans lately, so I was pleased to see that the California 529 Plan [2] at Fidelity is once again giving out gift cards.

I’ve mentioned before that we’ve opened about a dozen accounts [3] there for Target Gift Cards in the past. There is no annual account maintenance fee and the majority of the index portfolios have 0.50% management fees. In fact, I actually maintain an account there for my niece.

How To Sign Up

  • Register [4] for the offer.
  • Open [2] your account.
  • Sign up for automatic investing of $50 per month.

From the Terms and Conditions:

  • Limit: two (2) Gift Cards per person. Each account must have a different designated beneficiary and be individually owned (no trust, custodial or other ownership arrangements).
  • Allow 8-10 weeks (from date of qualification for Gift Card) for Gift Card delivery.
  • The initial $50 automatic investment must be contributed and invested within 90 days after the account is opened.
  • Offer ends December 31, 2008.

They’ve added a new twist this time: you must enroll in recurring deposits. Since you have to wait a couple months to get the card, it looks like you might need to contribute about $100-$150 to the account. That’s still a 33% return on your money.

If you were going to open an account anyways, it might be worthwhile to open it here. You can then roll it over to the plan you like. We usually open the accounts, then move them to the Ohio plan.

If you are looking for a 529 plan that you don’t have to set up recurring deposits, you can get $25 to open an account with the Ohio 529 Plan [5].

Update: CA Residents Only This offer has unfortunately been limited to California residents only. From the T&C: “Offer open only to individual legal residents of the State of California age 18 or older as of August 15, 2008.” Too bad, this was easy money in the past for everyone.