Financing Your Child's Education

As a parent of a child, you have probably had thoughts about them attending college and how they will pay for it. At the same time you’ve probably also thought that you can procrastinate that since they have a couple of years to go before college. Unfortunately, this is usually not true for most households. Especially since even a modest undergraduate college degree could cost over $100,000.

Estimate How Much You’ll Need

Taking the first step in saving for college is always the hardest. You’ll be asking yourself how much you should save and where you should put the money. Once those questions have been answered it becomes much easier to start making those deposits.
First, you need to estimate how much that education will cost. To give you an idea, for the 2009-2010 school year, the average annual price for tuition, room, and board at public universities was over $12,000. At private universities this number jumped to over $32,000. So, a four year degree today will cost anywhere from around $50,000 to well over $100,000.
Keep in mind that these are today’s prices. If you have a newborn on your hands, that means you’ve got 18 years before college, and the cost then will be significantly higher. To give you an idea, 18 years ago tuition prices were roughly half of what they are today. That means if the cost of tuition continues to increase as it has in the recent past, you can expect to spend around double today’s numbers. Knowing that, a public university four year degree may ultimately cost over $100,000 by the time your child is ready to attend college.

Think About Financial Aid

The good news about higher education is there are programs out there to help with some costs. Financial aid comes in the form of scholarships, loans, and grants. So as a parent, you aren’t necessarily expected to foot the entire bill. While you may want to be able to provide for your child’s entire education, they aren’t completely out of luck if that isn’t possible.
So, keep financial aid in mind when planning for how much you’ll need to save. Granted, you shouldn’t be counting on a full scholarship and put off saving completely, but there will be some opportunities available when it’s time for your child to addend school.

Coming Up With the Money

The hardest part is coming up with the money and putting it to work in the right place. Obviously, the easiest thing to do is to simply take some money out of every paycheck and put it into a savings account. While that’s a good start, due to low interest rates you’ll never be able to achieve your goal.
So, you’ll need to look at better methods for saving and investing that money. Probably the most common vehicle for college savings is the 529 plan. These plans have many advantages from tax deductions on contributions, tax-deferred growth, and tax-free withdrawals for qualified expenses. If the tax breaks aren’t good enough, these plans also provide a variety of investment choices to choose from that will allow you to earn more than the fraction of a percent you receive in a typical savings account.
Each state administers their own 529 plan so there isn’t a universal account out there for everyone. The best thing to do would be to start by looking at your state’s plan and examine the benefits. There are situations where another state may offer a better plan and it may be worthwhile to use it instead.
Once you’ve found a plan you’ll want to look at your investment options. Most have portfolios already created that cover everything from the most conservative to the most aggressive investment styles. Again, this will be up to you to choose and you should only invest with what you’re comfortable with. But even the most conservative options will likely generate a modest return compared to the bank or CDs.
To give you an idea of how a little bit goes a long way in a 529, consider this. If you have a child age one or under and begin contributing just $200 a month into a conservative portfolio that generates an average of 5 percent returns a year, by the time your child is ready to begin college you’d have $70,000 saved up! Sure, it still might not be enough to foot the entire bill, but it will make a tremendous dent and keep your child from resorting to going into substantial debt by taking out student loans. A little bit goes a long way when you start early.


Source : financialplan[dot]about[dot]com

Managing your credit card debt

So, you've used your credit card, and you can't make the full payment. Maybe you've been like that for a while, barely able to manage the loan you have with your credit card company. That is not a good situation to be in, each paycheck you get, you have the looming threat of your debt.

To pay off your debt, you need to, every month:

• Figure out your budget. Write down all your income, and write down all your necessary expenses. Food is necessary, beer isn't. That new Blu-ray player isn't, paying the electricity bill is.
• Figure out how much you need to pay. List all your credit cards with their current balance, minimum payment and interest rate.
• Prioritize. The cards with the largest interest rate are top priority. Then in that category, the card with the highest debt is your first priority.
• Meet the minimum. On all your cards, find enough money to pay the minimum monthly payment for all your cards. If you can't pay that amount on all your cards, pay the ones that are prioritized (see previous point).
• Start paying it off. Once you've met the minimum, you can now start losing that debt. Start paying off the high priority card, dollar per dollar. You have to exceed the minimum amount on the top priority card, otherwise you won't be going anywhere. Once that top priority card is paid off, go to the next one. Always pay off the one that has the highest debt and interest rate.

The first couple of months will probably be the hardest, considering the minimum payment is a percentage of your loan for that credit card. Once you start paying it off, that amount will shrink as you pay it off, so you will have more money to use to actually pay off the card, instead of just paying the bare minimum, which will make your debts go away quickly.

If you're in a bind, you can try to call your credit company and see if they will reduce your rate. It will not always work; you're asking them to make less money off of you. But some will if you've been a good client (paying off your debt on time). Calling them won't cost you anything, and the worst thing that can happen is that they refuse. You can always try later in a few months, after you've started paying off your loan and keeping a good record with them.

I realize that this will take time, months and months, but a debt is a debt, banks won't just let you walk free after taking a loan. Plan ahead next time, and don't live above your means.

Take my money,
Phil

Loans and debt?

Taking loans and having debts part of today's society, or at least that's what I seem to observe around me. People loan money for stuff, they use up their credit card to buy stuff they can't pay on-the-spot. I don't see why people do this; If you can't buy it with the money you currently have right now, then don't buy it. Of course some might think, "Well, I need to buy food! I can't wait!". Well that's what having a budget means. Also known as not spending your paycheck on useless stuff.

I think one of the exceptions would be student loans in the US, because the tuition price is so high that they can't exactly save up, assuming they are paid minimum wage at a part-time job, while attending high school. Unless they take a break from school to save up. Which isn't really efficient considering the jobs a young student with no experience can get, unless he (his parents) has good relations with high-placed people.

Anyway, if you look at common things, like clothing, food, entertainment, means of travel (car, transit, bike, walking), people don't seem to prioritize things, hence they spend a fair chunk of money on stuff that is low-ranked on Maslow's hierarchy of needs (link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs) and when time comes when they actually NEED to buy something, like food, or a subway pass, or new clothes, or pay the rent, they have to go in the red. Of course this example isn't quite strong; what is 50$ outstanding on your credit card.

I rather abide by the principle that if I can't pay the item on-the-spot with cold-hard cash, then I can't afford it, I won't use my credit card. At one extreme, if you are completely broke, that means you can't buy anything, including food, which is bad. But it's a progressive thing, you start thinking like that when you have some money, let's say at the store, you've got 20$, well you won't buy that new t-shirt or CD, keep that money, and when you go do the groceries, you'll have that 20$ to spend, so you won't be in a bind when buying what you really need. I've saved up money, so I can buy stuff that I want, but I always compare the price with stuff like my hourly salary, to see what kind of effort this item is worth.

Anyway, this might be a bit incoherent to read, but the main idea is that debts and loans shouldn't be a normal part of your life; if you're having financial difficulties, I think that planning out a budget should come first, and not taking a loan, because nothing is free in this world, and a loan certainly isn't. And I don't mean  having to pay off the loan. I mean the interests and other small-print things that come with "free money", those things will cost you money. It's not a friendly-friendly agreement; the bank wants more money than it lent you.

Take my money,

Phil