Sunday, February 3, 2013

College...Part I

Or it should be entitled, What I got out of The Economides' Money Smart Family System: Teaching Financial Independence to Children of Every Age (Thomas Nelson, 2012) http://www.amazon.com/The-MoneySmart-Family-System-Independence/dp/1400202841/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359941103&sr=8-1&keywords=money+smart+family+system

So what did I learn?  It is as important as starting and contributing to college savings accounts for your kids as educating them as early as possible the value of frugality in their own saving/spending habits.  By the way, I have found that Louisiana and New York 529 plans are among the ones with the lowest fees (although Louisiana one is only open to Louisianans).  For more information on this subject, please refer to www.savingforcollege.com.  I guess my challenge is to come up with a system that works for my own family...one that will help my husband and me to teach our own children the value of saving and spending money wisely while living within and below our means that we have learned over the years.  I especially like their point system that translates into dollars (kind of like an allowance).  For now, however, I think we'll stick to the point system that translates into rewards, e.g., 10 minutes on the ipad, which is their biggest object of interest right now.  My six- and five-year-olds are OK with saving all their money in their piggy banks for college...at least for now.  But, it is definitely a challenge and a call to come up with my own system that will work for our family.  Once I have it figured out, it will be my next blog post on this subject.  Stay tuned.

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