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Kids and Money

Bailing out adult kids

Submitted by Steve on Wed, 05/11/2011 - 10:24

Question: We have three grown kids. Two are doing fine, but the youngest one is married with two kids and is struggling financially. They are behind on their mortgage and credit card bills. What should we do to help them?

 Answer: Please proceed carefully. As we’ve seen in the news, bail-outs are not effective ways to solve a long-term financial problem. As we’ve helped people in the past we’ve developed some guidelines that have worked for us.

Paying for College Without Debt

Submitted by Steve on Mon, 02/28/2011 - 10:57

college, debt, scholarships, fastweb, fafsa

Question: My daughter is a senior in high school and is preparing to head off to college. We have no money saved for her college expenses and feel like loans are the only option we have. What should we do?

 Answer: You have more options than you realize.

My kids want it all

Submitted by Steve on Mon, 02/14/2011 - 17:04

Kids and Money

Question: How do I convince my kids that they don’t need to have everything that their friends have?

How Joe earned $166 an hour on his S.A.T.

Submitted by Steve on Wed, 09/08/2010 - 13:07

Our son Joe graduated high school in 2010. For the most part, he was home schooled, but took some dual-enrollment AP classes at our local community college.

Interesting Text Book Cartoon

Submitted by Steve on Mon, 03/15/2010 - 18:42

Our son Joe saw this cartoon last week and brought it to our attention. No, we don't think it's true, but it sure seems like someone is running a racket when it comes to college text books.

This week the board of regents in Arizona announced that our state universities will probably be increasing tuition about 18 percent this year, while the universities will need to cut staff pay and / or positions. All of this because our state is experiencing an extreme budget crisis due to the recession.

The recessions is not over yet!

Medical crisis and car payments

Submitted by Steve on Thu, 09/17/2009 - 09:13

Question: I have a chronic illness and don’t know when I’ll be able to return to work. My husband works a weekend job in addition to his weekly job. We have two car payments. One is $500 a month with 18 months left to pay off the car. Would we be better off trading it in to get our payments down to $300? We tried to refinance it, but the company said no. I’m not sure we can afford this payment on one income. We need two cars because our son just started college.

Six Ways to Get College Scholarships

Submitted by Steve on Wed, 02/18/2009 - 09:35

Question: In your article about paying for college, you said you helped your kids research and apply for scholarships. Can you give me some advice about doing this?

Answer: It’s great to see a high school senior so motivated. You can do lots of things:

Save Money on College Text Books

Submitted by Steve on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 09:16

College text books are a source of frustration and great expense for many students and parents. We currently have one kid taking college classes and are appalled at what the bookstores are charging for text books.

Handling hand-me-downs

Submitted by Steve on Mon, 01/05/2009 - 08:59

Question: We have five boys in a row and currently hand clothes down as long as things last. We’ve started using your MoneySmart Kids system for our oldest two boys. How do you suggest making it fair for them as they begin buying their own clothes? Do I buy their clothes from them at half-cost or a percentage of what they paid for them to then pass them on to the younger boys?

Affording Kids' Activities

Submitted by Steve on Mon, 12/08/2008 - 13:19

Question: How much money do you allocate per child for your kids' extracurricular activities