<p>There are some savings when they are out of the house and stuck on the budget you give them. DH and I don’t need a full dinner with all of the trimmings every night. With 5 boys, that was my life, making such dinners for a long, long time. My youngest is only 13 and right now he’s a skinny thing, but eats more than 2 men–he’s in that growing stage. Have a few of his friends over, and they can clean out the fridge in no time. I cannot keep milk and OJ in stock for more than a day or two no matter how much I buy, so I buy so much and we do without when it’s gone. But my “to pay” list is filled with school related things for the kids still at home. With a high school senior, you can imagine what the list is going to be like in the next few months. </p>
<p>I wish i could just pay for whatever school my kids want, but we have financial constraints that are going to make even the budgeted amount tough to meet. We have gone over budget each year with each of our college kids in miscellaneous costs, so we stick to the sticker price that we are willing to pay. It gives us some structure. I am ashamed we don’t pay more; our EFC is very high, but we made certain lifestyle choices a long time ago that make it difficult to pay what we should be able to pay according to the calculators. Those are the decisions we made. I do not blame the system one minute for it. My kids have enjoyed the privileges and advantages those decisions brought.</p>