My 529 Plan for Grad School

A few months ago, I started a 529 plan for myself. Since I plan to go to grad school within the next 4 years, I figured it couldn't hurt to start saving with a tax advantaged plan. I'm going a little bit higher risk than I should given my short time frame, but I'm fairly diversified, and I figure worst case scenerio I'll just have to take out the full loan I would have had to take out if I didn't save any extra money.

So far I have only $680 in the account. I have $100 going in to it automatically each month. Come tax time, if I have a rebate this year (which I think I should since I'm estimating my networth minus $15k in assumed additional taxes. Some of that will be taxes from my freelance work, but I haven't done that much freelance this year, so I will have a larger net worth than my estimate at the end of the year, hopefully.)

Then, I just have to figure out how much money I really should put into the 529. Besides the fact that I may, for whatever reason, end up not going to graduate school, my bigger concern is that I can't use the money for anything else without a major penalty, except education for my not-yet-existent kids. If I don't have kids, well, then that money will go to my sister's not-yet-existent kids, or I'll just donate it to my cousins. I'm sure one day SOMEONE can use it. And starting to save now for my kids' accounts is not such a bad idea... that's quite a long time for the money to grow, with all the earnings tax free (as long as the tax code stays the same, another worry.)

So at the end of the year, when I get my tax refund, first I'll put $3000 towards my 2010 Roth IRA, like I did last year. Any extra money left over... I need to figure out if I should put all of it into the 529 plan, or if that's stupid. I have a few months to decide. In the mean time, I best get studying for the GREs, which I'm taking next month!