Baby Step 5 - Saving for kids' college (part 1)

College degrees are a small fortune now-a-days. They also are not a guarantee that you will be able to get a job in that field. However, most jobs that pay well require that you have a college degree. So it is a huge decision whether or not you invest in a college education or not. It takes careful planning on how you will approach paying for college. Baby Step 5 involves saving for your kids’ college degree. If you don’t have any kids, if your kids have scholarships, or your kids are grown, simply skip this step. You can continue to contribute to your retirement plan while saving for your children’s future. See below on how to calculate how much to save.
Dave Ramsey recommends that you do your research about college before you begin this step. You should try to determine the costs of private, public, and trade schools. Then come up with a gameplan on how you will approach your kids attending college. The degrees that you get can be obtained affordably. Some tips are going to a community college for two years, then transferring to the college of your choice where you can obtain your degree. This is a good suggestion for kids that have not done so well in school or who may not be able to obtain a scholarship from their school of choice. It is also a way for you to save money, or prolong the money that you have saved for college. We don’t recommend student loans, but life happens. If you find that you have to take out a loan, then only take out the exact amount that you need.
Dave Ramsey’s first rule for college is to basically pay cash. His second rule is if you have cash, or even better a scholarship, (basically you can afford to attend the college) then go to that college. A recommended site for researching scholarships is myscholly.com. A lot of Americans fund college with student loans. It’s better if you can avoid this. It’s a mistake we made in college. I have paid off all of my student loans, thank goodness, but it was a challenge. We are still working on paying off, Renardo’s. We have rolled this amount into our debt snowball. Learn from our mistakes and also from our successes.
We are currently on Baby Step 2, so we knew we would not be able to assist them with college. We were late in planning for our daughter’s college. We encouraged our kids in school. I had the GI Bill which offered the option to transfer to your dependents. There was an issue with the GI Bill transfer for my daughter that was not resolved by the first semester, so we ended up having to take out a loan for just her first semester in college. We were lucky that the University of Alabama in Huntsville had a program that rewarded academic excellence and high ACT/SAT scores with scholarships. My daughter was able to obtain a partial scholarship from UAH. She stayed at home (to save money), looked for other scholarships, and worked part time to obtain her college degree. She eventually found another scholarship and her tuition was paid in full for her four years.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Baby Step 2a: The reason your debt snowball isn't working part 1

Image
 You’re not budgeting You’re not 100% focused on your lowest balance Your income and expenses are remaining the same Your spouse isn’t on board You aren’t consistent You aren’t tracking your progress This is the step that I struggle with. The Debt Snowball. It would be easier to pretend like I didn’t have issues with this, but I am not. Most wounds don’t heal unless exposed. After Renardo and I remarried, we began budgeting, saving, and hustling for our dream…owning a home. We managed to obtain our dream only to slide back into old habits. After obtaining our home, we generated more debt. We recently bought a new house, a new car, among other things. We were sensible in our purchases, and can afford everything we bought, but we did not go in the direction that was most beneficial to us. Debt reduction. A lot of the pointers that Dave Ramsey espouses, we did not follow. So, I know the struggle is real. Step 2 is the step that I struggle with. One of my goals is to one day overcome our h
Read more

Felicia Gill Bio- Career Advisor at Calhoun Community College part 5 of 5

Image
People always ask me, “Why non-profits?” My answer: Don’t let the non in non-profits fool you. All the money in the world is tied up in Non-profits. Any cooperation you can name has a 501 (C)(3), a non-profit status attached to it. Non-profits will never go broke. There will always be money and resources for the poor. Being currently employed by Alabama Community College Systems at Calhoun Community College as a Career Advisor and prior employment at Concordia College Alabama as an Academic Advisor has afforded me the opportunity to have more tools in my tool box. My area of expertise consist of:  • Career Advising (Your Interest can be your income) • Career Exploration • Resume reviews and resume writing • College entry resume  • Mock Interview • Academic Advisor • “What Can I do with my Major” • Networking • Changing Careers • Learning Disabilities and resources So, if you are thinking about a higher education, go for it! You are never too old.  Just know that bei
Read more

Chauncey Turman - Career Biography part 1 of 2

Image
I am the son, and only child of Willie Dean (Edwards) Turman, and Eugene Coker; both of Selma, AL. I’ve only met my biological father a handful of times, but my mother married Henry Turman in 1976, he adopted me, and he raised me and loved me throughout the rest of his life. We lived in Detroit for a few years after that, but left east Detroit as the city began to rapidly deteriorate. The Detroit of my youth was a grand and beautiful place; I miss it. It was at the end of summer in 1978 that we made our way to the small, quiet farming community of Litchfield, Michigan, and that is when this city boy began to learn how to do many things working our small produce and pig farm. In preparing to write this bio about the various careers I’ve had, I instinctively fast forwarded to all the things I’ve done since graduating from Western Michigan University, but life has a way of sometimes leading you back across paths you’ve already walked, and I must admit, many of the skills I learned on
Read more