(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 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