I am an idiot: Next year I will have three kids at expensive private colleges in non-technical majors

Not sure where you live, but I don't know if you understand how easy it would be to spend 150k a year on the east coast with a wife and 4 kids. Here is a bit of a comparison - I live with my girlfriend in manhattan. We have no kids, no car and rent a 1br apartment in a cheap uptown neighborhood. Combined, we gross about 95k. We live a pretty modest lifestyle (no overseas vacations since we've lived here, only go out once a month or so) and scrape by financially. I can imagine how fast 150k goes in an east coast city with a wife and 4 kids. I went to college in the midwest, and the costs of living there are not really comparable with the east coast. I'd say it easily costs twice as much to live here.

ttc wrote:

I appreciate your post. But it's gotten ridiculous how many high salaried Americans find a way to spend their money. It's why there're so many in foreclosures- 'Let's spend all we make'. If you made $300K, would you be in the same boat? More expensive house, car?

laughingostrich wrote:

Ok, so you have $100,000 left over. Where do you waste it?

similiar situation As OP and seniorsofteng.

I'll play along.....Find the waste, ostrich.

"whats left" is not enough to live, so obviously have to cut out the 401k contribution, which every finacial advisor tells you NOT to do.

Didnt get any aid, have a reasonable mortgage...and there are 3 more kids on the way to college.

(edplan is what i am trying to save for remaining 3 - kindof hopeless)

% of total

income 162000 100.0%

house mort 18396 11.4%

house taxes 8100 5.0%

401k 22500 13.9%

edplan 14400 8.9%

tuition - 1 kid 41600 25.7%

fed tax 29660 18.3%

sociall sec 8370 5.2%

state tax 7393.5 4.6%

medicatre tax 2092.5 1.3%

health care 6604 4.1%

whats left 2884 1.8%

ttc wrote:

I appreciate your post. But it's gotten ridiculous how many high salaried Americans find a way to spend their money. It's why there're so many in foreclosures- 'Let's spend all we make'. If you made $300K, would you be in the same boat? More expensive house, car?

There are far fewer $300K households in foreclosure than $75K households, but all it takes for either is a job loss and extended period of unemployment to cause you to lose your house.

How does your edplan work? Are you not pulling the one kid's tuition out of that fund?

Find the waste? Well, to be honest your accountant (or your copy of Turbotax) is doing a bad job of deducting some of your expenses from your taxable income. If you have an income of $162,000, you have a mortgage, a kid in college (for whom you're paying full tuition), you're funding your 401k at 15%, there's no way you should be paying nearly $30,000 in federal tax.

In fact, I'd venture to guess you're pulling those numbers out of thin air.

expectmore from kids wrote:

I went to college with 45k tuition and the only thing my parents paid for were books. I only have about 20k in loans and i just graduated. I just had to find scholarships, work hard in the summer and take my running really seriously. What this did was help me take my education much more seriously. I appreciated it more because i knew how much i wanted it.

So tuition was 45k per year, 4 yrs = $180k. Add in at least $10k per year for room/board, car, insurance, books, etc.

That makes $220,000 for your school. Did you really earn $50,000 per year in scholarships and summer jobs? Because that is what you are claiming.

If you made $15 per hour and worked 40 hpw all May-June-July-Aug, you would still only net ~$7700.

I agree that people should expect a lot of their kids, especially if they want to go to private schools. But do you really think it is possible to get scholarships of AT LEAST $40,000 per year at a school THAT YOU SAY costs $45,000 in tuition?

I went to a public school that at the end cost about $24,000 per year (for everything) instate. Before college I worked up the following plan to pay for it:

25% GSLs (that way you could only graduate with about $25k in loans)

25% from a JOB (summer or not)

25% from parents

25% from scholarships ($6000 a year - was not too hard - engineering scholarships made up the bulk of it and I was a National Merit Scholar which made up the rest)

The problem with this plan became that my parents decided they would pay nothing. Since I could not just "come up with" more scholarships every year and count on them, and I did not want to graduate with $50,000 in debts ... I had to make that money. And that meant $12,000 a year NET.

Minimum wage was $5.15 then and I could not work full time year round. I decided to start a mowing company. I was very successful, but it took over everything from May until October-November. It would have been almost ideal, except that I could not take an internship (important in engineering) as I could not afford to, and Spring term went until June 10th so I was deep into working all of late April, May and early June.

Also, when I should have been ramping up school for Fall term, I was instead working on lawns all September, October and then Fall cleanups in November.

And this was for a school with very reasonable tuition (~$10,000 a year instate), the rest of the bill was for rent/food/car/insurance/utilities, etc.

How would you expect someone to EARN the money to attend a school with $45,000 tuition? Much less the $10-20,000 a year it costs YOU TO LIVE?

internet accountant wrote:

Find the waste? Well, to be honest your accountant (or your copy of Turbotax) is doing a bad job of deducting some of your expenses from your taxable income. If you have an income of $162,000, you have a mortgage, a kid in college (for whom you're paying full tuition), you're funding your 401k at 15%, there's no way you should be paying nearly $30,000 in federal tax.

In fact, I'd venture to guess you're pulling those numbers out of thin air.

You get -0- deduction for college tuition.

internet accountant wrote:

Find the waste? Well, to be honest your accountant (or your copy of Turbotax) is doing a bad job of deducting some of your expenses from your taxable income. If you have an income of $162,000, you have a mortgage, a kid in college (for whom you're paying full tuition), you're funding your 401k at 15%, there's no way you should be paying nearly $30,000 in federal tax.

In fact, I'd venture to guess you're pulling those numbers out of thin air.

numbers came direct from paycheck and about 6 minutes with excel.

it is the sad truth.

edplan is 529 for next few kids, kid#1 didnt have one, started too late.

14-flat wrote:

So tuition was 45k per year, 4 yrs = $180k. Add in at least $10k per year for room/board, car, insurance, books, etc.

That makes $220,000 for your school. Did you really earn $50,000 per year in scholarships and summer jobs? Because that is what you are claiming.

haha, thanks for that post.

@expectmore from kids -- you aren't looking so good now.

you have no clue wrote:

numbers came direct from paycheck and about 6 minutes with excel.

it is the sad truth.

edplan is 529 for next few kids, kid#1 didnt have one, started too late.

So you have about $200 a month left over for food, utilities, auto payments, insurance (homeowners, auto, and life), gas, entertainment, home repairs, etc.? From an income of $160,000?

I call BS. If you were in such dire financial straits, why on earth is your first still in school? Or at the very least, at a school that costs $40k a year. And why are you still socking away 15% to your 401k?

OP, I'm not going to read through this entire thread. At the end of the day, your kids get out of school what they put into it, no matter where they go. My wife lived at home, worked 30 hours per week, and attended a nearby state school. She graduated with damn near a 4.0, crushed the LSAT, and could've had the pick of top law schools. Instead, she chose another solid state school, graduated again with damn near a 4.0 (she put 80 hours+ per week in), and after paying her dues for ten years (working weekends), she's finally sitting pretty, having almost paid off her student loans. She has no entitlement attitude whatsoever and worked for every penny she ever earned.

I attended a top public university, studied a hard science while my friends partied, and had a plethora of offers coming out of school, but life had other plans for me. I was still able to complete a graduate education in finance/economics locally, partly paid for by my employer, even as I was recruited by some of the top 15 universities in finance. But I built a local network in the place I wanted to LIVE and work. My wife did the same.

At the end of the day, I think the best public schools are as good as any private university, and the education depends largely on the work ethic and attitude of the kid. But there are many ways to go about it.

Another analogy using local schools. An engineering degree from Colorado State University is every bit as good as one from Colorado College or Denver University, if not better, at probably 1/4th the cost.

ghost of old face andre wrote:

So you have about $200 a month left over for food, utilities, auto payments, insurance (homeowners, auto, and life), gas, entertainment, home repairs, etc.? From an income of $160,000?

I call BS. If you were in such dire financial straits, why on earth is your first still in school? Or at the very least, at a school that costs $40k a year. And why are you still socking away 15% to your 401k?

not in dire straights at all - small mortgage, no debt besides the house, cars paid for, etc.

guess post was confusing. the numbers are for next year, where i will have to cut the 401k as only solution, as mentioned.

this year, kid is in year one, so tuition was only 20K - 1 semester.

post was for the stiffs who cant figure out that in some situations 130-170K is not big green.

and the 41K is alot less than many schools around here - northeast.

anything over 125K income - Zero colleges aid unless you have multiple kids in school.