Parents of the HS Class of 2016 (Part 1)

@3scoutsmom That’s great that you’re on the same page. The only page my kids are on is ‘go where the jobs are.’ They both lived away this summer, going where the internships were, and think they can do anything. Oh, to be so young and naive. I’m thankful I have time to work on explaining life to them. Unfortunately, they are hardly ever here and I’m not really sure how to bring up important topics when we’re not in the same place.

I’m totally on board with going where the jobs are, and if DD stays on this teaching career path there are pleanty of high school math and science teaching jobs in our area.

@3scoutsmom - I have a couple of thoughts on this in case it’s helpful:

  1. I have a former student who is doing exactly this! She went to Wellesley and then moved home and is working as a HS teacher and putting by the savings toward hopefully buying a house/condo soon. She originally planned just 4-5 years but realized that she can save so much that it's going a bit longer now. She has a couple of siblings but I don't think they're home now, so her parents also like having the company.
  2. I think your plans are very well-formed and sensible, and you have thought of all the various expenses! I'm impressed. :)
  3. Different personalities can be good in teaching, and people often move more toward the "F" from the "T" with age, and with years of experience teaching (and then parenting) in the Meyers-Briggs sense, i.e. being more tolerant/sympathetic. That said, the first couple of years are hard for any teacher, so I hope she can get a job with a really good mentoring/induction program for new teachers, and she should observe as many master teachers as possible "live" before she starts.

Good luck!!

We also have a DD20 so the fridge can be handed down or, if her school does not allow it, sold to another student. I was more concerned about the transport than the expense. DS did not have to consider either last year.

@Cheeringsection I’ve used Target pickup a few times. It’s easy. You can order online, specify the store for pickup, and also indicate who will be picking the items up. The only trick might be timing. They won’t hold the item at the store forever, so you’d want it to arrive in the store close to move-in.

@3scoutsmom, back in the dark ages, my parents charged my brother rent at the market rate, but put this in a bank account for him that he could use for as a downpayment. It worked well because he never thought of it as his parents setting a budget for him or anything else intrusive like that.

@melvin123 unfortunately one can not afford “market rate” in our area on current beginning teacher’s salary in our area and have anything left to put aside for savings that’s my issue! I really don’t want her to pay us rent because that could have tax implications for us. I think it’s much easier that we agree to pay for certain things is she agrees to save x amount of her salary. (This will also let her manage her discretionary spending, she could choose to spend or save - I don’t want to micro manage!)

@3scoutsmom hi, sorry, but I poorly phrased what I was saying! My brother didn’t really pay “rent”. Yes, he gave my parents what would have otherwise been fair market value rent, but all my parents did with that money was deposit it in a bank account in HIS name. So it was his savings.

Anyone setting requirements that their DC must meet before they get to take a vehicle to campus? We did not make a specific list but had certain things we have talked about during the college search and freshman year (clean HS driving record, college GPA, $$s saved, campus involvement, etc). Any others that you would suggest? Looks like DS will meet what we have discussed in time for 2nd semester of sophomore year. We told him to test drive a couple before he goes back to campus this fall so that we can be watching for just the right one.

We let DS take his car to campus after the fall semester last year. He paid for half of it when we bought it in HS (it’s a 2006 Nissan), but we told him he’d need to show us with his grades that he could handle the transition to living away from home. At first we planned to have him keep the car at home all year, but he had some dental issues and we wanted him to be able to drive for appointments (his school is 3 hours from home). He needs a 3.0 to keep his scholarship, so that was the same requirement from us for his grades to bring his car. His GPA in HS was around a 3.25 UW, so we just wanted to make sure he kept up the same level of effort while living on campus. He did just as well spring semester grade-wise with his car there, so he’s taking it again. His campus is 40 minutes from the beach, so it’s nice to have a car for weekends. It’s a tough decision, though. Also, he has to pay for his own parking pass and gas, and any parking tickets of course.

In June, my daughter bought her own (used) car and is paying her share of the insurance as well as all other car-related expenses. She worked several jobs last spring and saved her money. She is expecting to do the same in the fall to be able to continue to pay her bills. Her grades were fine so I really don’t feel I have much say in the matter. But, I worry - and will worry a lot more as the weather changes and she is faced with hazardous driving conditions.

"Anyone setting requirements that their DC must meet before they get to take a vehicle to campus? "

No. I really did not want d to take her car with her to campus. My h bought her a new car and she wanted to take it back after Christmas. My h encouraged it because he likes to, in my opinion, spoil her. She is on a full-ride scholarship, so we are paying all the costs on the vehicle such as car insurance gas, parking, and even a parking ticket. Since she maintained a 4.0 this past year, it was hard for me to make an argument for her not to have the car at school. I know this may sound odd, but I think that in a way she is really missing out on lessons that are learned by the classic “poor, struggling college student” way of life.

We also pay for her club level college dance team (about $1500/ yr), medical stuff, incidentals,and about 1/2 of her clothes. We are just middle class. It seems with the scholarship though, that dd has a much higher standard of living. Given that I paid for most of my college myself, the whole thing just seems kind of weird to me. We also told her we would pay her living expenses while in med or grad school. However, she is responsible for the tuition.

Hi, there. I don’t post on this thread much, but read it. I’m active on the theater threads as that is what my daughter is going to school for. Anyway, somewhat related to the cars on campus discussion above, I wanted to see if anyone has experience with Geico auto insurance and if you like it? Our rates are really high and they just went up. I ran a quote through Geico for the exact same coverage and it was much, much less $. But I would love to hear others’ experiences with it. Want to be sure if we call roadside assistance, they will be there for instance. And they pay up on claims, etc. Thanks for any info.

Thanks for the car requirements answers. We still have not made a decision exactly when that will happen. He did drive some cars recently and we now know what we are searching for. I guess the timing is now based more on what we find but also somewhat on how hard we look.

I have realized that once he has the car there is no guarantee he will come here when campus closes for breaks. He has already spent some break time in another city with friends. I am glad he has made good friends but sad to be preparing to see less of him once he has more transportation options. Regardless, he will very likely need a car to get to/from his summer internship so this needs to happen sometime in the next 9 months. I will just need to really enjoy taking him to campus this fall since he will just drive himself as a junior.

We have Geico and we’ve been very pleased with them. The roadside assistance is fine, but we have AAA and use that for breakdowns. And they DO pay up and are very helpful. BUT, D does not yet drive-had planned to get her license this summer, but Geico wanted to double our rates with her being licensed, even without a car and 2,000 miles away at college. She opted not to even get her license, given that she’d have had to help with the cost of insurance. She wouldn’t have been getting a car. So there’s that-whatever the quote tool gave you, make sure they’ll really honor that. Our cost would have been even higher if she DID live at home or own her own car!

And an update for the regulars-D is back at school-early, because she’s an orientation leader for the incoming freshmen.She’s settled in and waiting for her roommate of last year to join her on Friday. She’s got mostly core classes this fall, since she had mostly major courses both semesters last year. She’s now in the honors program and hopes to run for student senate. It was quite different dropping her off this time. Last year we left a 16 yo kid, this year in her place was a poised young lady ready for anything.

Thanks to @sseamom and @Cheeringsection for the info.

@bfahopeful
I just recently decided to get quotes from new insurance company because our auto insurance and homeowners keeps going up in spite of no claims or tickets (they don’t count the claim due to weather damage against you personally). What I found out was that it is not recommended to stay with same company for more than three years. Instead of honoring loyal customers with lower rates, I read that insurance companies increase the rates because they know people don’t want to be bothered with shopping around.

Also of note is that we had State Farm and when we had a hail storm approx. 2008, everyone else on our street I talked to got new roofs except us and the people across the street who also had State Farm. I was really busy with work and instead of fighting the denial of benefits, we paid out of pocket approx $9K for new roof. Then we had another hail storm that was even worse and we had damaged windows and screens front of house, damage to siding on one side of house, roof damage, and took the paint off cedar courtyard fence and cedar deck railing as well as the trim on all sides of the home. State Farm low-balled us with a ridiculously low amount to pay for painting. Honestly, I felt their claim handling was a nightmare to deal with. My car that was sitting in the driveway had $12K damage to it and they paid that with no issues.

So, we finally got around to getting quotes for auto policy for three cars, homeowners, and umbrella policy. Allstate offered approx. $800/ year in savings and Erie Insurance offered approx $300/ year in savings for same coverages.
We decided to go with Eire Insurance because they are rated very highly in adjusting Homeowner’s Insurance Claims. Also, they offered a rate lock for our auto insurance for three years (provided there are no changes in coverage). We also elected to get the optional endorsement for roof and siding matching so that if we ever have partial damage to either, they will pay additional to replace larger area in case the materials are discontinued and can no longer be matched. My pet peeve is seeing roof or siding repairs that don’t match; so this was very important to me.

Of note is that while researching this, I came across an article that said that some of the auto insurance carriers lost money in the past couple of years- so rate increases are on the way. It also mentioned that there was a big hail storm in s Southern/ Middle state and that over 3000 cars were damaged, so that would drive up rates also. It seemed like a good time to get locked into the auto insurance rates with Erie Insurance for three years.

However, I did not research Geico- so I can’t comment on their claim handling practices.

Thanks for the info!

DD has had her car since the beginning as she works off campus and, as a nursing student, will need to get to clinical. The deal has always been that we will pay for now but if she does anything that changes the rates–ie accident, ticket, change in good student discount–she will pay

Anyone have their umbrella policy with a different company than their home and auto? We are close to switching but the umbrella policy difference is eating up our savings. We have never filed a claim.