Edwards Family Empowerment

My youngest son scored a 25 on his ACT. He met the academic requirements for a full ride scholarship, but not the score requirement of 30 on his ACT. I had to use my super Mom persuasive powers to convince him to take a $100 prep class at UAH. He groaned and complained the entire two weeks, but I give him credit, he went and he paid attention. He increased his ACT score and obtained the full ride (minus room and board) scholarship to UAH. He simply stayed home to reduce costs or the need for a student loan. My oldest son, did decently in high school. He didn’t fail, he passed his courses. He wasn’t as academically proficient as his siblings, (he’s just as smart as his siblings) so we were not surprised when he suggested that he wanted to enter the military for the GI Bill in order to obtain his education. This is an option that you can also explore with your kids. My son’s advice is to stick to your intentions when you’re in the military. It’s very easy to get side tracked with ...

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 c...

Let’s talk investing. The last four steps can be done simultaneously, but I am going to address them separately. Baby Step 4 involves investing. You should invest 15% of your gross household income into Roth IRAs and tax-favored retirement plans. Why 15%? You can work on the last 4 of the baby steps simultaneously: pay off your mortgage, save for college for your kids, etc. while investing at the same time. 15% is a safe rate to invest. Once you have paid off your home and your kid’s college fund is fully funded you can always increase the amount that you are investing. One thing you should check on is whether your company offers a Roth 401(k) option. Companies sometimes offer matching funds for your 401(k). What this means is that for every dollar that you put into your Roth 401(k) your company may match that amount. This is free money. If you are on this step, you should be maxing your 401(k) option. Invest your entire 15% here. The best part about this is that the dollars in...

I used to think that if I made a little more money, it would solve all of my financial problems. It turned out not to be true though. When I was in the military, the first place where I was told to report to work was in Fort Lewis, Washington. My basic pay was about a $1,000 a month and my apartment cost about $700. Being in the military, I received money to cover the cost of housing and also money for me and my family to eat. This was before John McCain passed a law to increase the amount of money that military families made. This law was passed because Soldiers were paid so little they were eligible for assistance programs like food stamps and WIC. I’m not going to lie, all three of my children were on the WIC program. We lived in a small house. We could watch the front living room tv from the bedroom, but we made ends meet. The one thing we did (that I regret) was that as I got promoted in rank, and began earning more money, we began spending more money. Our tastes grew to suit our ...