Exactly my point. Cashflow will obviously only work if you have some disposable income. Every family chooses to spend their disposable income differently.
Yeah, I understand what you mean: I always laugh at the "how to save money advice" that tells me to cut out lattes, stop smoking, drink less, and skip restaurant meals. I have literally never had a latte, have literally never smoked a single cigarette, spend about $25/year on alcohol, and eat out about twice a month. I cannot save significant money with those oft-touted "just use your disposable income" methods because I'm already not spending on those things.
I'm sure that some families genuinely have no disposable income, but most people have it and are spending it rather than using it for college savings. Fine -- that's their choice, but it's unfair of them to say today, "Family vacations are a top priority for us" . . . then whine later about lack of savings.
Yeah, but I've found that my costs have never really gone down from when we were paying a lot for daycare. Daycare costs were replaced by violin lessons, regional orchestra tuition, etc., more expensive clothing, more for food, etc. Yes, you dont' have as much of those expenses once the kid is in college, but for all those years leading up, when you'd like to be saving, there isn't so much left to save, so the snowball ends up being pretty small.
In my experience, our kids were expensive from birth to age 3 -- then we had 5-7 years when daycare was less expensive (3s and 4s are much less expensive than labor intensive newborns and one-year olds) and they weren't into afterschool activities yet. We saved like crazy in those years. When they hit middle school, our costs went up again: They started wearing adult-sized clothing, which is harder to find used. They needed braces. Then the cost of driving and teen activities hit us in high school. But we definitely had some year in the middle when it was easier to save.
Also, by the time our kids were in elementary school, we were both earning more than we did when they were newborns -- yet we saved more rather than "up" our lifestyle.
You can do more from cash flow than you think! I think too many people think "I can't save that much money" and just end up taking out much larger loans than necessary because they didn't try.
I think you're exactly right. People think it's an all-or-nothing proposition: If you can't manage to save the whole thing, just forget it. If you're going to have to borrow, why not just borrow the whole thing.
The reality is that if you can only manage to save a small amount, it can at least cut down on borrowing, which can make a big difference in the final payoff.
Hahhaahaha!
We all managed with help or without help..... Our kids will too!
Yes,
I did manage on my own, but at times I lived in places that genuinely weren't safe, sometimes my feet got wet because I had holes in the soles of my only tennis shoes, fairly often I was hungry, I shared some books or used other can't-afford-books-measures . . . the list could go on. I don't feel the need to coddle my kids in luxury during college, but I do want them to be more comfortable and safer than I was.
Also, college costs have increased to the point that doing it all on your own isn't nearly so possible as it used to be. That's just math.
Wish we could have just continued saving during those daycare years but we had also moved into a much larger and more expensive house and there was no more room to save at the time. It is always a juggling act!
That's exactly why we chose to stay in "less house" than most of our friends have -- college was more important to us.
