Comments on: Interesting Financial Rules to Follow (?)

By: J. Money

J. Money — Mon, 03 Jun 2019 17:35:45 +0000

In reply to Juniper.

Indeed… Love that she went on tour with her band though – that takes all kinds of risk! Bet it was so thrilling as hell too :)

By: J. Money

J. Money — Mon, 03 Jun 2019 17:34:07 +0000

In reply to Jennifer Cook. Very cool state perk!! Never heard of that before!

By: Juniper

Juniper — Mon, 03 Jun 2019 12:17:35 +0000

Right after the doctor showed us our twins, “it’s a boy… It’s another boy”, we whispered to them, “by the way, there won’t be any money for university”. Neither of us had parents who paid, nor any of our friends. We all worked to pay. University and college are sadly much more expensive now (even in relative terms) but our boys are graduating this year and taking a year or two to work while they decide what to do next. A lot of their friends are heading off to “try something out” at enormous cost to their future selves. I would rather encourage them to spend their money travelling for a few years! It took me at least ten years to figure out what I thought I wanted and now I still can’t decide… My daughter is twenty one and has been working since she quit school in grade 11 to tour with her band (she finished by correspondence with honours). She’s thinking of sellng her car to take a few courses at university this fall.

I guess what I’m saying is there are many paths.

By: Jennifer Cook

Jennifer Cook — Fri, 31 May 2019 21:27:02 +0000

We began saving in a coverdell and then a 529 plan for my daughter when she was an infant. 10 years later we stopped saving for her college. We had lost money in the market during the downturn, both in her college fund as well as our retirement funds. We decided we needed to aggressively save and secure our retirement first. The idea that my daughter would attend an out of state elite school is a pipe dream for us and unless she earned a full ride for herself, it just wasn’t going to be.

Interestingly, we have about a third of what her college bill should be if things stay the same and that should cover the expenses (we really, really hope :) We live in a state where they offer steep discounts for public universities based upon SAT scores. If a child scores very high they get 100% of tuition paid for; if they score well (which is where most kids fall) the tuition is 75% covered. She also plans to take dual enrollment so she will earn 1-2 years of college for free as a high school student. This would leave us to pay 25% of 2 years of college. If it turns out to be more than that we will cut back on extras and pay as we go, our daughter will also work and I will look for a side hustle if necessary. I had felt that the cost of college for our situation was overestimated. I didn’t want to over save and then be forced to use the saved money on education that we may not have to purchase. Another idea to save money on college is through CLEP testing.

By: Tonya

Tonya — Fri, 31 May 2019 01:52:08 +0000

In reply to J. Money. Definitely out of control. What other industry would make 5 or 6-figure loans to someone with little to no income. It is worse than the zero down mortgages pre-2008. As a country, we have learned NOTHING.

By: COD

COD — Thu, 30 May 2019 20:14:21 +0000

In reply to J. Money. I heard that rule of thumb somewhere, but don't remember where. I borrowed about $20K for college back when that was 50% of the 4-year cost out of state. So I guess that is like borrowing $100K today. I paid it off in 9-10 years.

By: J. Money

J. Money — Thu, 30 May 2019 17:49:22 +0000

In reply to Tonya. The whole industry is def. getting out of hand :( Although I just heard that a handful of schools in Virginia are freezing tuition for the next year, so maybe it'll be the trend to help at least pause things for a bit?!

By: J. Money

J. Money — Thu, 30 May 2019 17:47:59 +0000

In reply to LeeAnne.

You’re sitting pretty over there!! If there’s ever a dating site for financial nerds I think you’d be getting a lot of “likes” or whatever they’re called on them, haha….

By: J. Money

J. Money — Thu, 30 May 2019 17:43:03 +0000

In reply to Tara.

Yup – good point on the *time off* stuff, that’s hardly ever considered and you need time to grieve on top of all the logistical nightmare stuff! And I’d imagine half a million will put you at ease pretty well in that department, haha…

By: J. Money

J. Money — Thu, 30 May 2019 17:39:15 +0000

In reply to Nita.

I think you’re right about that paid off house idea in retirement – that shaves off a ton of expenses that need to be figured in, even though of course they’ll always still cost money…

good job flipping the saving/discretionary %s around like that! almost 40% is no joke!!