Kids and Money

SonyaAnn posted yesterday about her car insurance woes.
Her post was very timely to me, since we are going to be making some big changes in my family soon that will involve vehicles and insurance.

After our 3rd car-the one the kids used to get around in-was totaled last May, we didn't replace it.
At that time, #1 Son was finishing up his 2nd year of college and not home, Daughter was going to be attending college that Fall for the first time(so she no longer would be living at home and needing the car for work or school)and #2 Son was still almost a year away from turning 16 and being eligible to get his learner's permit.
So we didn't replace the car last year.

We put the money we got for the totaled vehicle, last May, aside and Hubs added the little bit of cash he got from his mother's estate with it and we planned to find a $5K or so "beater" car for #2 Son to learn on and use while he finishes high school.

Now let's throw a monkey wrench into the plan.

Daughter has been having second thoughts about her career path.
Ok, a bit more than second thoughts.  After finishing up her first semester at college with a 3.80 grade pt. average, and  after doing a job shadowing with our family doctor over Winter break, and after having her interview at the medical school that her college has a program with and passing that interview so that now she is guaranteed a seat in the medical college when she graduates with her Biology degree, after another 3 years of school, she has decided that she no longer wants to be a doctor.  She told her father and I this after she went back for her 2nd semester the end of January.

I was disappointed that she didn't even finish out the first year before deciding to do a 360 degree turn in her plans.  But it's her life, right?  We told her to slow down and not do anything hasty, but a couple weeks after returning to school, she had changed her major to education and found a new adviser in that dept.
So she suddenly is very sure she no longer wants to be a doctor and she is suddenly just as very sure that she does want to be.......a science teacher.
She says she has had this idea in the back of her mind for a very long time, however this was the first time we, her parents, have heard Daughter voice this career path.

Not to get into much detail here, but currently Daughter had abandoned the Teaching thing and is rethinking her life and may be moving back home after her 1st yr. of college is over.

Basically after having a meltdown at school she wants to finish up the year and come home.
Now she is talking about going into Engineering at this point and transferring to someplace close to home and living at home and commuting to school.  But it's not a 4 year degree in Engineering, she is talking a 2 year Associate degree and/or Job Training to be a engineering technician.....like the kind that comes to your house and fixes your electrical wiring or some kind of mechanical engineering.

The bottom line is though she is real good at being a student and taking tests, etc. she does NOT want to do it for any longer than she has to.  She wants to get out there and work with her hands AND her mind.
At least that's what I am hearing this week.....

Not sure if her new educational plan will pan out or if it's just another "idea" that she is trying on, but I do know that she'll be moving back home for now.  I have suggested that if she doesn't know what she wants to do yet, to get a job and work for a year and take some time to think hard about what to do next.

One thing for sure though.....she'll be living here and she'll need a vehicle to get to work and/or school.

So now I have to figure out if SHE needs to buy the car in her own name and have her own insurance policy or if we need to buy another car and keep her on our policy(and she can make car payments to us once she gets a job).

And where does all this leave #2 Son and his needing a vehicle to get his first part time job?.....driving himself to all his band rehearsals and performances?......driving to a local college in another year if he participates in the High School program where Seniors take college courses?

Paying for 5 cars and 5 drivers on our car insurance policy plus all that gas and maintaining all those cars?
Just kill me now......

Sluggy

More College Fun......Keeping My Fingers & Toes Crossed!

So Hubs took Daughter for a campus visit to the safety/small state college she was accepted into.  This is the school that offered her a 1/3rd tuition merit scholarship and is the only one that the pile of money we have set aside for her will cover the cost of the degree without lots of student loan debt.  It is NOT her 1st choice school so she grumbled the whole way to the visit.

She came back fairly impressed with the school and the biology/bio-medical departments there.  Her biggest concern seems to be now that this school is NOT in a large city like her 1st choice, so she thinks there will be nothing to do for fun.   Kids.....

She will be bored for awhile but she won't be in massive amounts of debt when she is done there.
I think that's a pretty good trade-off.
Heck, knowing her, she'll be running this school before she's done!lolol

She also discovered that this school has a nice little perk.  If she gets accepted into a special pre-med program there, she gets an automatic berth into an accredited medical school that is affiliated with this college.  No having to interview or apply to medical school(she could still apply to other med schools if she wanted to)and no competing with the hundreds of thousands of other potential medical school candidates for the finite number of slots each year.  There is having to keep her grades at a certain level through her undergraduate years but if she does, she's guaranteed one of the 5 automatic seats for graduates of her school into the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Well she will have to get a 24 on her MCats as well as pass the interview and get letters of recommendation too.
She has already sent in her application for this program so we wait to hear back.  Please cross your fingers that she gets in....I'd appreciate it. ;-)

Of course, the $200,000+ she needs for medical school is another matter she can worry about 4 years from now.lolol

Here is some more information on this whole Student Debt issue.  If you have any articles or stories to share on this issue, please leave a comment and links for us.

* A Video from Glenn Reynolds' talk give at the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism lecture series last fall on the 'Higher Education Bubble'  HERE.

*A humorous column from George Will HERE.

* For the first time, Student Debt surpasses Credit Card Debt HERE.

* A podcast by Zac Bissonnette, who wrote a book about going to college without going into debt(while he was still a student!) HERE

* An article on saving on the cost of school by incorporating Community College into your plan HERE.

* If you put your college funds into a state plan or a 529, you need to go read this HERE.

Also, if you have a Coverdell Education Savings Account(not a 529), you need to know that they extended the tax breaks that were due to expire 12/31/10.  The new end date for these breaks is  12/31/12...unless Congress extends the deadline again at that time.
This is something you should keep your eye out for in a couple of years if you'll have an ESA at that time.

Sluggy

The Good, The Bad & The Not-So-Pretty

First the good.....
If you haven't seen this on my Facebook already, #2 son's Marching Band had a big regional tournament Sunday in Hershey PA.  The band performed very well and they won their Division!  In addition they were awared top honors in 4 individual areas.

I am so glad to see them do well finally.  Our Band Parent's Association hosts one of the big local Tourneys at the high school.  Our band finished last in the 'open' division at that.  Our band is very small.  Our band gets next to zero $s from the school district, so the parents are saddled with most of the costs to cloth, host competitions, travel to competitions, etc.  This lack of resources puts our band at a large disadvantage next to other schools who have much larger parent associations as well as more funding.  We usually compete in the open division but with the big glitzy bands the kids have to compete with, they never finish very high up the food chain.

There is one local band that we have a David and Goliath type competition with.....to put it into GLEE SPEAK(for those of you who are "gleeks", we are New Directions and we compete with Vocal Adrenalin.
And after working the tourney our band hosts and seeing the directors and parents and the kids in this Goliath band up close and personal, I can honestly say that most of them that I have had to deal with are NOT very nice people.  They are rude, the universe revolves around them and their needs, and they have no class.
So seeing as we really can't compete on an equal footing with the Mega-Bands, we now compete in a different division.  And it seems to be paying off.

Speaking of people who think the universe revolves around them.....
We are having large problems with our Daughter.  She has always been too smart for her own good.  Getting good grades, etc. has been a nice result.  But she has "too big for her britches" syndrome and has had it for the last 5 years or so.  She feels she is the center of the universe and she treats other people(her family)like dog poo....unless of course, she wants something from you, and then she treats you nice until she gets her way.  She no longer wishes to be associated with our family except for us to do for her and give her her own way in things.  She doesn't feel the need to respect her parents or her siblings, or to lift a finger to help the family.  It's all a big she takes and we give.

If fact, she is making life so stressful for her parents and her younger brother when she is home that we are at the point that once she turns 18 next month, she may be asked to find someplace else to live.
I love my Daughter and I thought we could make the current living situation work well enough to get her graduated and off to college(which would have her NOT living here then), but I'm not so sure we can make it until June.  My health is suffering and she is becoming verbally abusive toward me.
Unfortunately we don't have any family locally who we can pack her off to for awhile until things cool off or she grows up a tad so I don't know what you are going to do.

In other news.....Daughter got her acceptance to Ohio State today.  I have no clue WHY she applied there.  We aren't big OH football fans and we don't live in Ohio.lol
But she did and she got in.
We are still waiting for the "yeah" or "ney" from the one school we haven't heard back from....Penn State.
Hopefully soon.

I have reopened my eBay store for the Holidays. SSP(aka Shameless Self Promotion) link is HERE.

I'm hoping even with the economy and the sluggishness of eBay, I can unload some goodies to the Holiday buyers.  I am concentrating on listing toys and collectibles since it's the gift buying time of year.  Even with this heavy stuff at Christmas someone might overlook the shipping expense more and I can get some of these large weighty items outta here!lol
At any rate, my living room and dining room now looks like a postal warehouse has exploded in there with all the bubble wrap, boxes and merchandise everywhere.  Throw in a few boxes loaded with fabric since I store those in there and it's such a lovely sight.lol

The one thing that all my years doing eBay has done for me?  It has made me an expert at re-cutting and gerryrigging boxes for shipping.  Now, if there was some industry where I could put this skill to work for me as a career....besides eBay that is.lol


I cleaned the interior of my minivan on Sunday.  It was LOOOOOONG overdue!  For the past 2 years I have told the kids that if they wanted to make some extra money that cleaning my car was tops on that list and the money was available at any time should they undertake that chore.
2 years and it was still undone.
So I hauled out the vacuum cleaner, clorox wipes, windex and newspaper and just got it done before winter weather sets in.

Saturday was the last day to qualify for the Thanksgiving Deal at the local independent grocery store.  If you spent a minimum of $300 in 5 weeks' time you got a $15 gift certificate.  It wasn't even a free bird deal but the best thing going in these parts.
I made a run to the grocery store Saturday evening and we ended the qualifying period with $115 in purchases....so not EVEN halfway to the amount we needed to spend to get that $15 certificate.
Oh well.
Last year I ended up doing the Price Chopper Turkey Deal....spend $25 in one transaction and get a free bird.
This year Price Chopper has upped the ante tho....spend $50 in one transaction and get a free bird.
Egads!
Doubled the qualifying price!!
And I don't even like turkey so I am so not liking this deal and tempted to eat chicken this year instead.lol

That's about it for now from  my corner of the world.
What's new in yours?

Sluggy

Congratulations.....And Welcome to the Poor House!

You may remember I ranted about Hubs letting Daughter apply to 5 colleges a week or so ago.
5 schools meant 5 application fees of between $30 and $55.
Ouch.

Five applications for a teen who may not even go to college now and enlist in the Air Force instead.
One day she can't wait to go away to school.
The next day she can't wait to go to boot camp.
The one common thread seems to be the "wanting to leave here" part.
Hmmm.....If I was the sensitive sort I'd take an affront to her wanting to leave us.

Quite the mercurial child, she is.
And no, it's not the alien teen life form hormones at play.
She came out of the womb not being able to make up her mind.

I can just see her now, after making her parents shell out $200+ to apply to schools, and getting into all 5 schools, and she ups and says forget it and joins the military.

After all, she took the Armed Forces Aptitude Test(the ASVAB)that indicates if you are smart enough to enlist and what jobs or career paths you qualify for.  The minimum score to join the AF is 36......a 36 won't be flying planes however. ;-)

And she scored a 93 out of 99 on it so she qualifies for about 98% of the jobs in that branch of the service.
So now she's trying to decide between dropping bombs from the plane she is piloting or performing neurosurgery at the US Air Force Academy Hospital for a living.
She still has the physical fitness test to take before she can sign up to be a Jr. Birdman, er....woman however.  The getting in-shape part is proving to be the harder side of things.


Unlike #1 son, who waited to apply to schools until Feb.(not one to jump right on a task, is he?), Daughter got motivated to apply to her choices by the end of September.  I think it was more of a "let's get this over with and fast" kind of deal with her rather than a 'get up and go' attitude.
And late last week, she heard back from the 1st of the 5 schools.....the University of Pittsburgh(PITT).

She was accepted into their Pre-Med program for 2011!

Not this Pitt....

This one....

It's no Harvard but the freshman acceptance rate is quite low so we are proud of her.
4 more schools to hear back from plus the Air Force keeps beckoning to her.
But if she decides to go to PITT, you can come visit me at my new address--

Sluggy
c/o The Poor House
13 Broke Lane
ArmPitt, PA

It could be worse.  Yes, Pitt is a public university but it's a lot pricier than the one #1 son attends.  Daughter will still need $$ after we kick in what we have set aside for her education.  Crossing the fingers she gets some academic scholarship monies or she'll have a substantial student loan debt when she graduates.

But Daughter has that all figured out too.  If she attends college first, she'll enlist after college and get the Air Force to repay her loans for her in exchange for her service in the armed forces.

That's my girl.....always thinking of a way to save money!
Now if I could just get her to fold her own laundry and put it away.....

Sluggy