According to the local public radio station, South Dakota students carry the highest debt load in the nation. I was shocked to hear this for a couple of reasons: South Dakota Universities (public ones) are very affordable. For example, I’m currently enrolled in 17 credits (6 graduate, 11 undergrad) and tuition & books totaled slightly less than $4000. South Dakota incomes aren’t that high. So if these students are going deep in debt only to get a low paying job, they are setting themselves up for disappointment. Perhaps because of #2 above, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that students are [...]
Read MoreChildren and Money
Another page has been added to our selling the van story. You long time readers can skip ahead, but if you want to catch up here is the first part, and here is the second part. Now for the third installment of “Will They or Won’t They?” I was having dinner at my parents house a couple of weeks ago and my Mom asked how we were doing financially. I gave her my pat answer that I always give her, “Just fine.” But then I made the mistake of offering a little more. “But we’ll be in much better shape [...]
Read MoreI bet lots of you have read Robert Kiyosaki’s, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” where he talks about the different ways his father and a friend’s father taught him about money. When looking back at my own life I see that I too had different perspectives shown to me. My parents split up when I was 4, and went in very different paths upon their separation. My Dad who was a plumber when he was married to my Mom, moved back in with his parents in the Twin Cities so he could go back to school and be close to better [...]
Read More“I don’t need more stuff, I need someone to spend time with me” Photo Credit – LightChaser: Luis Cruz
Read MoreIf you have a job and kids, the issue of daycare is bound to come up. As my Nitty Gritty post showed, it is our biggest monthly expense. And I bet that is true for a lot of families. A few ways of dealing with this expense come to mind right away: Utilize daycare while both parents go to work. Work different shifts so one parent is always home with the little ones. Only have one parent work, so the other can stay home and raise the kids(full time job in itself). My wife & I had good intentions and [...]
Read MoreA beautiful dose of motivation to get your finances in order. Photo Credit – Squiggle(Flickr)
Read MoreSticker shock. That is probably your first thought, I know it was mine when The Happy Rockette first told me about the stroller. A little more than 3 months later, we own one! See the picture below for a quick look or click here for an in depth look at PhilandTeds.com. Here are the criteria I used to evaluate and review our Phil and Ted stroller purchase and why I think it was a great purchase: Pay Cash. The Rockette had been working every other Saturday to help out at her former job and decided she wanted that extra effort [...]
Read MoreThe average infant adoption in the US can vary from $5,000 to $30,000 and on average costs $15,000 – $20,000. Our two newborn infant adoptions cost us about $11,000(0 after credits) and an estimated $15,000($2,000 after credits). This article will not break down the different costs associated with adoptions, but it will list multiple ways that adoption expenses can be considerably lower than those numbers suggest. I am speaking from experience since the expenses of our first adoption were more than covered by the programs/tips below. First and foremost, the Federal Adoption Tax Credit that was signed into law by [...]
Read MoreA year after our son joined our family, I remember looking back over our budget and being amazed. Nothing had changed!!! How could that be? We had host of new expenses like a $100 every few months formula, yet the amount we could put towards debt and save each month hadn’t really changed. What happened was that having a child changed our priorities. Things like going to dinner and a movie disappeared and the money was routed to more important places. No longer was getting new coat important. I would rather stay home with my family instead of going to [...]
Read MoreWe recently talked about financially changing your family tree as financial motivation, but for those of us needed some more convincing here is evidence that our decisions about money go much deeper than just dollars and cents. Our choices are crucially importance to our children and this offers early stage evidence that our choices can cover over ‘bad’ genetics. The researchers “studied 109 children who had been removed from their parents’ care due to reports of abuse or neglect and 87 control children with no reports of abuse or maltreatment.” The children also had two gene polymorphisms that put them [...]
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