Go out into your yard and dig a big hole. Every month, throw $50 into it, but don’t take any money out until you’re ready to buy a house, send your child to college, or retire. It sounds a little crazy, doesn’t it? But that’s what investing without setting clear-cut goals is like. If you’re lucky, you may end up with enough money to meet your needs, but you have no way to know for sure. Continue reading “Investing for Major Financial Goals”
When your child first started school, you doled out the change for milk and a snack on a daily basis. But now that your kindergartner has grown up, it’s time for you to make sure that your child has enough financial knowledge to manage money at college. Continue reading “Teaching Your College-Age Child about Money”
Even with all of your savvy college shopping and research about financial aid, college costs may still be prohibitive. At these prices, you expect you’ll need to make substantial financial sacrifices to send your child to college. Or maybe your child won’t be able to attend the college of his or her choice at all. Before you throw in the towel, though, you and your child should consider steps that can actually lower college costs. Although some of these ideas deviate from the typical four-year college experience, they just might be your child’s ticket to college — and your ticket to financial sanity.
Continue reading “Sticker Shock: Creative Ways to Lower the Cost of College”
Before you jump into investigating graduate school funding sources, the first thing to do is calculate how much your education will cost. Along with direct billed tuition and fees, make sure to add in collateral expenses that won’t show up on the bill, such as room, books, commuting costs, day-care expenses, and so on. And if you plan to give up your job, factor in the time you’ll be without a paycheck and the time it might take you to find a new job. Once you have a cost estimate, it’s time to look for the money.
Following are some suggestions on where to look for financial help.
Continue reading “Paying for Graduate School – Calculate the costs”
You’ve saved for your child’s college education through the years, helped your child research schools, and supervised the application process. Now, thankfully, your child is in college. But you probably can’t disappear just yet — there are still bills to pay. Maybe you underestimated exactly how much financial aid would cover. Or perhaps you knew all along that you’d have to use some of your own resources or take out more loans.
Continue reading “Finding Money to Pay College Bills Out of Pocket”
