Saving some of your earnings by living below your means is a key to successful investing. There are many ways to find money to invest, such as living simply so you’ll save more money and developing a career so you’ll make more money. The Earning and Saving category equips you with practical tips for spending less and earning more.
Educating children can be challenging no matter where they go to school or how they learn. School quality can vary. And my experiences may be much different than yours — both as a parent and as a student back in the ’60s and ’70s during the somewhat chaotic years of desegregation . Whatever your circumstances, hopefully these thoughts can give you insights into choosing and navigating your children’s school situation:
Choosing a free public school over a private school can save parents about $9,518 per year (the average private school tuition per year, according to the Private School Review) or more — as the cost can be significantly higher in certain parts of the country (a good high school in my area costs $20,000 per year).
Parents make a lot of decisions for their children, hoping to make the best choice, not only for the child’s current circumstances but also for the child’s future and the family’s well-being. For example, when I was growing up, I knew a boy who attended a public school while his twin brother attended a private one; the parents wanted their children to develop unique identities and made this unusual (to me) choice. As for my husband and me, we chose to send our children to public schools. The schools in our area are good ones and we liked the idea of saving money on education.
I’ve put together an Excel spreadsheet that can allow parents to run the numbers and let you know how much private school tuition could impact a personal balance sheet.
Making the rounds in my social media sphere this week is The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans, an article by Neal Gabler published in The Atlantic. The provocative subtitle reveals the shameful secret: “Nearly half of Americans would have trouble finding $400 to pay for an emergency. I’m one of them.” The nearly penniless (or … Continued
