That’s how many 529 college savings plans have been created over the last few years.

If any of your clients are thinking about a 529, share these advantages with them:

1) No federal taxes: As long as withdrawls are spent on college expenses, the feds can’t touch a dime of it.

2) No low ceilings: Most states let you put as much as $370,000 into a 529. That’s a pretty high ceiling! But for families with living grandparents, great-grandparents, uncles and aunts who just lo-o-ove their grandkids … ’nuff said.

Source: USAA.

Try a whopping $240,000, says a recent Fidelity Investments healthcare cost estimate.

That’s for a couple with traditional Medicare coverage and without any secondary coverage. It doesn’t include any costs associated with nursing-home care.

Could be Fidelity’s estimate is off – but not in retirees’ favor. Last year Fidelity projected a retiring couple would need $230,000 for healthcare. And Fidelity’s projections have increased by an average of 6% every year since 2002.

They plan on working until they’re 80!

A recent CNN survey shows three-fourths of Americans plan on working in some capacity during retirement years. Twenty-five percent say they’ll keep working full-time until age 80 largely because their retirement savings took a huge hit in recent years.

If you have clients telling you the same thing, they may need a reality check. Depending on their line of work, they may not find an employer who wants them hanging on into their 80s. A decline in mental and physical capabilities often makes doing the kind of work they easily handled in their 50s near-impossible by their early 70s.

Make sure clients in their 50s and older aren’t shorting their retirement nest egg. Suggest they start looking at what they can and can’t do without now and in retirement years.

While studies show working into your later years is good for the mind and body, there’s no guarantee it’s a realistic option for everyone.

That’s just one sobering statistic from a recent Aflac Work Forces report.

Bad enough that well over half of U.S. workers haven’t planned for a medical emergency or loss of job. The Aflac report also finds:

• Just 8% of workers “strongly agree” their family is financially prepared for an emergency
• 51% have less than $1,000 saved for emergency expenses, and
• 28% have less than $500.

Never assume all of your clients are “smarter than that.” Asking clients how prepared they are for an unforseen loss of income may be the biggest favor you ever do for them!

Women. A new report by the ING Retirement Research Institute shows:

• women save $41,000 less than men over the course of a lifetime, and
• women with children have $61,000 less in retirement savings than men.

These stats alone are worth sharing with female clients – and here’s one more stat that drives home why:

On average, women live 8% longer than men.

Are any of your clients neglecting their 401(k) plans? Let us know your opinion below.

Consider stepping up

First things first, the 29-year-0ld Dell employee started carrying a flask of booze with him out at bars. (Good thing no bartenders or bouncers caught him pulling this stunt!).

Mihalic sold his car, got a second job as a landscaper, took in rent-paying roommates and skipped eating out altogether.

He also made two risky financial moves:

• cashing out an IRA, and
• not putting money into his 401(k).

The payoff: He eliminated about $40,000 worth of interest he would’ve paid on his college loans over the next 15 years.

Lucky for him, Mihalic earns a six-figure salary at Dell. Since more than half of today’s college graduates don’t have jobs in their fields or full-time jobs, cutting student-loan debt is no doubt easier for someone in his shoes.

But you can’t argue with the results: $90K in loans, plus $40K worth of interest, eliminated in about nine months. Sounds like Joe had a pretty entertaining time doing it too.

Check out Mihalic’s blog, NoMoreHarvardDebt, here.

Reason: Social Security stopped printing and mailing statements last year!

Now the agency is sending statements to people 60 and older who haven’t started receiving benefits yet.

For the rest of us, the only way you can check projected earnings is via Social Security’s website. You can estimate retirement, disability and survivors benefits using the online tool.

One cool feature: You can take a trip down memory lane and see how much you earned at your first jobs.

Kraft Foods’ 401(k) plan allegedly charged participants “excessive” plan fees in return for “insufficient returns,” says a recent class-action lawsuit.

Employees say the company’s mismanagement of its 401(k) plan ultimately resulted in them missing out on nearly $84 million in gains.

Result: Rather than take its chances in court, Kraft settled the lawsuit for a whopping $9.5 million.

But not in the world of fine art.

Last week “The Scream,” an 1895 pastel by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, sold for a record $119.9 million at Sotheby’s.

That smashed the 2010 record of $106.5 million for Pablo Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust.”

Should high-end investors be looking at art and other kinds of collectibles? Maybe so.

Highly sought collectibles like comic books and baseball cards may cost a pretty penny – but history shows their value keeps climbing … and climbing …

A federal judge hit ABB, Inc., with a $35.2 million fine for breaching its fiduciary duties.

Employees sued the company for letting Fidelity charge what they considered excessive plan fees. In exchange for charging employees higher than average fees, ABB received a discount on payroll and benefits processing costs.

Fidelity didn’t come away unscathed either: It’s on the hook for a $1.7 million bill for plan participants’ losses!