(Photo courtesy of Joe Goodz, Flickr)
Getting ready for enrollment should have been done at least six months ago.
Not today, not in May, and certainly not a week before school starts.
A couple I interviewed once said enrollment time is their most stressful season of the year. Christmas spending may put them in debt, but the warm, fuzzy feelings ease the pain. What the heck, it’s Christmas! they say. No such thing for enrollment days. It’s just pure financial pain.
Alex C. wrote:
It’s enrollment time again for my three children in grade school. Every year, I get so depressed during this season. Everything I save whole year round disappears at this time. Then I start at zero again, saving for next year’s round of tuition fees. Can you give me advice on how I can manage this time better? How can I prepare the needed funds adequately in time for next year? — Alex C.
There’s a trick called “sinking fund” that I learned when I was a beat reporter many years ago. You may tell the kids it’s a wormhole that will bring them to a great place across the galaxy. We drop an amount monthly into the wormhole to let it grow big enough to pay all our tuition for the year. How much to feed the wormhole exactly? Divide all tuition expenses by how many months you want to save up for it.
So, when the kids are hankering for their third serving of Dairy Queen Blizzard, suggest feeding the Blizzard instead to the wormhole — the wormhole that can send them to college and a good education. Let them decide. You’re giving them a stake in their own education and an unforgettable lesson delivered without words. Great for teenagers and children.
Enrollment blues, our personal finance article, talks about this tip and many others. Check out the entire article here.
Make a date to start your wormhole. Don’t just file this tip away for future use.
For those whose wormholes have already started growing, don’t stop at next year’s tuition. Go for high school. Go for college. Go for your own post-graduate degrees in Oxford. Sky’s the limit.
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:43 am
Thanks Robert!
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:05 am
Salve,
prescription drugs are actually free IF your insurance (the insurance you get while working and not the government health insurance) pays for it…. usually the insurance pays 80% to 90% BUT if both of you are working, then it will become free by passing the difference to your spouse’s insurance. The government insurance pays for the rest. For example, you have an eye exam for glaucoma. The doctor’s fee, and all the laboratory tests done are free. It will be charge to the Universal health insurance (government). You just have to pay for the prescription drug first hand then claim it from your insurance.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:55 pm
C_A, I think the stipend has not gone up much, so I wonder how the scholars manage. The UP Government scholars and Oblation scholars have an edge over STFAPers. They don’t have to fall in line, and that line was REALLY long during my days. University of Pila, di ba? You are right about STFAP though. I had a lot of rich classmates who made it to bracket 4.
Like you, I also worked (Research Assistant) for the same reasons (the siren call of SM North hehe). Still, it IS a blessing, a privilege and a damn good thing for a probinsyana like me, you know?
April 21st, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Ria, me too. Me too. But I think that if the government handles its finances well enough and there aren’t many leakages, it doesn’t have to tax its citizens very much.
P500 per unit may be expensive compared with the tuition fee rate many, many years ago, but compared with UA&P and Ateneo, it’s still cheap. STFAP??? I remember those looooong lines! I’m glad I was spared hehe.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Oh yes the DOST scholarship is the best so far
STFAP? Pffft! And I heard it is now P500/unit these days.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:13 am
btw, pisay stipends is based on the family financial status. which, like UP’s STFAP system, had a flaw as it is purely based on the family’s ITRs…. you can see where i am coming from here…as those who are well-off can still receive financial subsidy because… (i believe all of us can complete this statement)
during the time i was there, the maximum monthly stipend was P1K, which is just enough to pay for board and lodging for a dormer those days (which I was for 2 years). i had to sign-up for the godparent program which gave an extra P500/mo to cover miscellaneous expenses and some trips to SM North.
then I was a DOST scholar throughout my college years, with stipends as well.
back then, i can feel how proud my parents were of me especially in the company of relatives, friends and neighbors…but embarassing at times. i can still remember some of their remarks to my parents, “ang swerte niyo naman…” in my mind, i always say to them that i don’t think luck has something to do with it… for me it’s all about understanding our predicament and what I needed to do to help out. i can still remember back when i was in 3rd grade, the first time i heard of pisay and what it offers… i envisioned what it would be like and really worked it to reality.
i still follow the same at this point, i envision where i want to be and do what i had to… the right way that is
April 18th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Salve,
I wouldn’t mind paying higher taxes if it will be working for you. Yes it is steep but hey, you want a good quality of life (or at least a semblance of it, be prepared to pay for it.
By the way I have lots of UK citizen friends (not immigrants) who complain a lot about high taxes. What they do is move to the Middle East (UAE mostly) because their expat fees go a long way compared to their UK salaries.
April 18th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Hi robert, do you mean to say prescription drugs are free? My husband and I were talking the other night about the documentary Sicko and he suddenly has this urge to migrate
April 18th, 2008 at 9:22 am
C_A, thanks for the information. The taxes are pretty steep! But, let me continue my thought bubble from my comment to Ria…
Do Irish citizens complain about the high tax rates?
April 18th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Ria, you’re right. the taxes are high. question: would you feel better about paying those taxes if the social services are good? i can feel a thought bubble coming hehe.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
the child support, single mother benefits, pension for seniors ( who has not even work from day one and hence did not contribute any tax ) are all coming from the tax we paid. So, just imagine how big the tax will be. Oh, by the way, the medical benefits is also NOT completely free … at least in 2 provinces i have been, we still have to pay for non-prescription drugs, contribute monthly health insurance (in ontario, this is free due to higher provincial tax, in alberta i pay $44) and more often than not you have to wait in queue for months if you require a specialist.
April 17th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Child benefits/allowances here in Ireland are paid in cash by the governement either thru checks or direct deposit to a bank account in the state. And is not dependent on the family income status.
Education here is free upto the Secondary level though… even special schools (though it’s quite difficult to get a slot because need is much greater than supply at this stage). College though is a different thing, and everybody here prepapres for it and typically cost more for non-Irish citizens.
Since these are government benefits, they are funded by taxes: on wages (20% upto a cut-off point and 41% thereafter), other sources of incomes, property tax, VAT (w/c is 21% for most items, much less for food though), etc.
The social support structure here (much like most of Europe and in other countries, I believe) is really millions-of-miles apart from that of the Philippines. For that alone, we feel so, so blessed.
Don’t mean to rub this in or get readers depressed (if it did, sincere apologies). I guess I merely wanted to let people know back home that such (socially centric governance) is possible and is happening in the real world. I only wish to inspire, hoping that this could be a possible starting point for future leaders of the country to build on. Start with an end in mind, someone says.
Cheers.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Uy may mga Pisay kids pala dito
“I wonder how they finance these child support benefits from a policy standpoint…”
Taxes! Some of these countries also deduct unemployment tax so you can collect money when you lose your job. O di ba?
Also notice that these countries are not overly populated so every citizen is taken cared of. Some like those mentioned above even encourage open migration pa nga kasi they need more people.
April 17th, 2008 at 7:07 am
Robert, thanks also for your input. I always thought education IS free in Canada, as well as medical treatments etc.
April 17th, 2008 at 7:06 am
purepinoy, excellent point and drives home the reality that something has got to be done on the policy level about the rising cost of education. there’s a unique suggestion from joey salceda on “cash for education”. for money to go to families that really need them, he says scholarship is not the answer. let the kids enroll where they want, and give them cash subsidies to help the parents defray the cost of education. parang canadian-style di ba? i think that’s too out of the box for the philippine government though. and just think about the corruption again. enforcement will be a major problem.
the other answer is to improve the quality of teaching in public schools to eliminate the need for expensive schooling in exclusive schools. here’s a thought on cheap public education: Pathways in Ateneo tested public and private schoolchildren in selected cities in Metro Manila, and found that the topnotchers were public schoolchildren. when they made an in-depth study, they discovered that these children benefited from full parents’ support (the parents made sure the children did not watch television on school nights, and if it meant they would miss meals so that the children will eat full meals during examination time, they would.)
amazing, huh? my child is enrolled in UPIS and i’m not paying through the nose. but my other child who did not pass the rigorous kindergarten examination (thousands try out and they get only 40 children), i don’t think i would enroll him in other public schools near my home. I’m currently paying 70,000 per year for his education. 70,000 compared to 4,000 I pay for public school is pretty funny.
until the public school system is improved to the level years ago when it produced graduates like Washington Sycip, education will continue to remain a privilege rather than a right. Oh, come to think of it, I am a public school educated gal, from kindergarten to college!
April 17th, 2008 at 7:06 am
hachiko, yes it does! when i was in college, stipend time was fun too hehe. what batch were you in pisay?
April 17th, 2008 at 7:05 am
C_A, thanks for the information. these are cash allowances sent to your account or deducted from your tax payments?
The Irish, Canadian and New Zealand government seem to be very efficient and generous when it comes to family support. I wonder how they finance these child support benefits from a policy standpoint… Public finance is one of my pet topics kasi.
I hope we can eventually have that here in the future. Heh maybe in 10 light years eh?
April 17th, 2008 at 2:54 am
here in canada, if you belong to the low income group, the government helps by giving you monthly child benefits that can go as high as cd$500/month BUT this is considered as income earned by one of the parents. Unfortunately for me, i do not get a dime for my 2 kids…and by the way, education is NOT totally free too….. DEPENDS on which part of canada you are in… contrary to the rumors being circulated back home. And you also have to dig out a few bucks now and then for some school activities…
April 16th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
the idea of sinking fund is always helpful even for other future major spending. it is cheaper and safer compared to taking a loan today and paying it in the future. it is better to pay the installment now and get the full amount in the future especially that enrollment expenses are will definitely come and at a specific date.
but going back to education, a friend once told me that the cost of education here (private) is sometimes beyond reason. he told me that the cost of sending our children to school from pre-school to college plus the lost income of our children (they cannot work while studying) will still be in excess with the potential future income. although this comparison is an exageration, there is a bitter reality to it. education has really become a privilege and not a right.
but if we will really dwell into that argument, where have our graduates gone? they are abroad working, and most of them doing the jobs a) that dont need a college diploma b) not related to their college degree.
April 16th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
salve, i know exactly how you feel. it’s always a privilege having a scholar at home. with all the benefits that come with it - monetarily and emotionally
April 16th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
To Salve, Re: Child Benefit/Allowance (current)
> euros 166/mo (~PhP10k) for 1st 2 child upto 16yrs (a little bit less for the 3rd child onwards)
> plus euro 1000/yr (euro 250/qtr) child supplement for every child upto 6 yrs of age.
not sure about the benefits amount in other countries though…
April 16th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
logan, i have a related post on “Migrate versus stay” that you might want to check out. Readers are divided on this one. Regards.
http://blogs.inquirer.net/moneysmarts/2008/02/05/migrate-vs-stay/
April 16th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
hachiko, when my daughter got accepted to UPIS, I felt like I won the lottery for 15 years! imagine i pay more for the school bus every month than for tuition for one whole semester. but, as they say, tuition is just one part of the problem. you have baon, shoes, lunch money, projects, and that exasperating liquid eraser pen that costs P150 a pop. that wasn’t necessary when I was in school hehe. (rolling my eyes here). at least, though, the tuition is out of the way, eh?
April 16th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
C_A, I am not familiar with the benefits in the part of the world where you live. How much do they give per month? Is this benefit only in cash? Sounds very accommodating of the Irish government.
April 16th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
femaad, good point! the mindset and discipline is the key. =)
April 16th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Plan on migrating to other country. Even if we only have 1 child that’s going to school, we didn’t have any savings when we were still there in the Philippines. We both even have a decent job when we were still there but still can’t seem to save… It’s sad but its the reality.. Good thing we move to Australia and we wont have to worry about our child’s education until college…
April 15th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
tuition has never been my problem since i made it to pisay then to up. so salve, kung kaya ng mga anak nyo makapasok dun, pagsikapan nyo! not to mention pisay gives stipends of around P2,500 a month just for showing up in school
April 15th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Re “Make a date to start your wormhole. Don’t just file this tip away for future use.
For those whose wormholes have already started growing, don’t stop at next year’s tuition. Go for high school. Go for college. Go for your own post-graduate degrees in Oxford. Sky’s the limit.”
Very well said. In our case, we take full advantage of the monthly child benefit/allowance that the Irish government (I velieve this is the same in Australia, UK and in most of Europe) is providing to all resident children under 16. We put them aside in a separate savings account for their use when they go into college.
April 15th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
hi, salve..this wormhole practice may also be applied to money for gifts for christmas/birthdays/anniversaries…or for upgrade of vehicle after at least 10 yrs of use (para makabili ng kotse cash)…or for foreign vacations (para hindi ma-charge sa credit card)…and so on, and so forth…yon ang ginagawa namin