<p>This day has finally come - two e-mails about "your bill is available".</p>
<p>On one hand, I am so happy seeing their hard works paying off and both kids going to the school they really like. I am just so proud of them.</p>
<p>On the other hand, we are looking down at least 4 more years of college bills, including 2 or three years of two bills. </p>
<p>Here are two major things we did to deal with the increased bills. Put only enough in the 401K to get the match and put a limited $$ into Roth IRA, instead of putting max in both accounts. We also did a refinance of our mortgage, cutting the fixed rate by 2%. DS will also get some subsidized loans. With those and the generours FA, I think we are going to make it. </p>
<p>The difficult part are some of these special bills. For example, the A/C leaked so we had to pay for a new A-Rack; Over $4K medical bills YTD, ultra high eletricity bill due to hot summer. </p>
<p>Those who are paying two or more bills, love to get suggestions/advises from you.</p>
<p>When we had 2 in college, both kids always qualified for subsidized loans. We always took the loans with the intention of helping the kids with the payments after they graduate. Here is the really good part. Our youngest graduated in May and we got a really big, tax-free raise!!! We are finally starting to do long delayed work on our house. The great thing about paying tuition is that it feels sooo good when you stop!</p>
<p>AC? Really? I mean, if you both work, you shouldn’t be home from roughly 8-4 at least when the key heat is, and then just having a fan on you should be enough. </p>
<p>How much do you actually have in your retirement accounts? Are you way ahead at your age? Way behind? If way ahead, cutting a little is no big deal.
I would also suspend payment to the Roth for now. While a Roth is better, it doesn’t beat a 100% employer match to your 401(k). Having you considered doing any rollovers or anything?</p>
<p>To be honest, its hard to answer your question without knowing a crapload of information regarding your financials. Try writing to Suze Orman and try to get on her show. She always loves talking about college and stuff (There was one episode where she made a girl cry because she told her going to Drexel for a Comm degree and making an average of 23k out of school was a stupid move)</p>
<p>I’m now paying 2 bills with 2 sons in college ('13 and '14). My older son’s 529 is healthy so I withdraw from that whenever any college expense is due. He’s got enough to pay for all 4 years of college.</p>
<p>My younger son doesn’t have quite as much set aside, and it’s in a mix of a 529, an i529, and a UTMA. I’ll be paying from my own savings and income as well. The school offers the Sallie Mae payment plan, which I’ve signed up for. I’m doing 8 payments of a little over $3000 each from now until next April. This allows me to keep my son’s UTMA invested and postpone taking capital gains until next year, when I’ll sell off some of his stock funds to make the final few payments. I’m going to spend down his UTMA first and then start cashing in the 529 funds, with the i529 available for year 4.</p>
<p>I’ve looked at my expenses and don’t see how cutting back on any one particular category would be more than just a drop in the bucket for me. I increased my health insurance deductible to save $300/month, but even with that it’s $1000/month to insure myself & my husband. We’ve thought about dropping our home phone to save $45/month (all we get are telemarketers anyway). And since the boys are away our grocery bill should drop dramatically (we hope!) Electric bills are one thing I don’t worry about - solar panels on the roof and very little need for air conditioning.</p>
<p>two kids in college and one at private HS. I look forward to the day when we can actually start saving for retirement a this point it’s all going to other people.</p>
<p>I tend to be a little obsessive about saving. For DD #1 (to be born in December), I should have my portion of her future college expenses set aside prior to her birth. I will work very hard to do the same for DS/DD for the second kid when the time comes.</p>
<p>Can’t offer the OP much advice except regarding retirement: There are plenty of loan options out there for college but there are no loans out there to fund your retirement. Make sure you are saving enough to life a satisfactory lifestyle in retirement prior to funding your kids education.</p>
<p>LOL, violadad. Our kids are 4 years apart so we never got the benefit of a FAFSA efc cut in half with 2 in school, because their college years never overlapped. We had the younger one still in private school during all 4 years of older s’s college (and we paid almost full freight for older s, with small merit $$) and are now paying for younger one’s college. We both work full-time (this would be my first suggestion), we live frugally and most importantly, we don’t whine about it.</p>
<p>For one year we had three at the same time. We almost always had two except for the first year and the last. Simply put: we knew we had these kids, so we saved up. We’ve always lived frugally and decided college was a priority and more important than luxuries. By the time the last one graduated, our retirement was funded, our house was paid off and now we are living really well. And no, we’re not rich. We’ve made around $100K for years. Just have priorities straight.</p>
<p>Dad II…the BIGGEST bonus you got was that you somehow your income appears to be low enough that both of your kids received significant need based aid at the schools they are attending. Perhaps you would be willing to share how you did this. You have repeatedly said that your out of pocket expense for your D to attend Stanford is $10K a year…and that your son got a similarly impressive financial aid package from his school of acceptance (U Chicago??). </p>
<p>You need to know that your $20K in expenses for BOTH of your kids is due their fine achievements in school (thus the acceptences at highly competitive schools with outstanding need based aid even for HIGHER income families) and good for them for making this possible for your family.</p>
<p>The thing that helped us most when our kids were in college…BOTH parents worked…full time. The income from one parent paid for college while the other’s paid for our other household expenses. So…best suggestion I would give…to anyone…if one parent is not working…get a full time job.</p>
<p>P.S. I KNOW if the second spouse gets a job that the EFC will go up…because income will go up. Personally, we were proud and happy to be able to contribute to our kids’ educations and felt that working to do so was a good thing to do. We didn’t expect others to subsidize our kids’ educations when both of us were very able to work.</p>
<p>P.P.S…Dad II…why are you looking at several years of two in college. Isn’t your daughter at least half way done with undergrad? Are you planning to fund grad school? Your daughter should be looking at ways to get funding for grad school.</p>
<p>If the out of pocket is only $20K for TWO kids, that’s quite a bargain. We, and many people, pay/paid more than that for one student. Really would love to know how someone with one (or possibly 1.5) income(s) manages to finagle their finances to be able to fund a Roth, 401k, pay for college and still enjoy many luxuries (ie non-essential purchases made using what must then be considered discretionary income).</p>
<p>^^^Yep. You should be advising us, OP. We had seven years of full pay, after taxes, and one of those years was doubling up. No expensive vacations, two loans, putting off home improvement (you should see my 70s kitchen ;)) and this is the first year in seven we didn’t have to shell out thousands of dollars each semester for tuition. Did I say full-pay? We had saved, but it wasn’t enough for both kids.
Not complaining, though. We’d do it again.</p>
<p>We’re not quite to our double bill years but they start next year. One of the bigger things helping out was paying off our mortgage before the double bills started. That wasn’t as hard as it initially sounds … a trap we started to fall into was having a never ending mortgage due to refinancing. We bought our first house in the mid 80s when the rates were high and refinanced many times in the late 80s early 90s and eventually figured out refinancing was great (lower rate less interest) but that signing up for a full term mortgage each time we refinanced was pushing out the time we would finish with our mortgage … so from the on when we refinanced we shortened the term so the end date was about the same as the old end date. And now we’ve freed up our mortgage payment so we can send it directly to the kid’s colleges.</p>
<p>Congratulate yourselves on your forethought if you have two in college at the same time.</p>
<p>We are just * paying* for two college loans, our oldest is actually a grad student and independent as ours are 8 years apart.</p>
<p>We initially thought that it would work out well for college only having one in school, but that is only if you can afford to pay full price without aid- if you need aid, it helps a great deal to split the EFC.</p>
Well, it’s difficult unless you’ve planned for it in advance. (Although I suppose that really planning in advance would mean spacing the kids 5 years apart - we lacked the foresight to do that and, as emerald says, it works if you don’t qualify for FA). Like several other posters, we’ve always lived well within our means, skimped on unnecessary items (which we define rather generously), and expected to pay a hefty amount. We were fortunate in only having to pay for two kids in the same year once, and one kid had a generous partial merit scholarship, which made it much easier. Of course, there probably won’t be vacations, home improvements, or expensive toys during the years of paying two or more tuitions. And there’s always violadad’s suggestion, if all else fails.</p>
<p>We are paying full freight for two this year, one at an Ivy, one at a top tech school. We have always lived frugally, use a mix of 529, zero coupon tax exempts bought in 1991 and out of pocket payments. If my S gets into grad school for next year, we expect it will be fully funded and some of that out of pocket ought to be able to stay in our pockets.</p>
Education is a priority to us. We knew, when we had our kids, that we’d pay for their college. We live very simply, plan well, and DH has had a good, steady job in a field where he is well paid.</p>
<p>I can’t understand the mistakes people, who go on the Suzi Osmen’s show, make. Her solutions are always the same: don’t spend more than what you can afford, put as much money aside as possible for retirement, and plan for emergencies. Buy generic, drive your own (boring) car forever, and vacation in a tent in the backyard. At least, that’s what we did and now we pay for 2 kids in college, loan-free. I could go without AC too except for a few hot nights in the summer.</p>
<p>Paying for two this year – this is the only time we will get FA, as our single-kid EFC hovers right around COA. Am very glad they are only 15 months (but two school years) apart!</p>
<p>How we’re paying:<br>
S1 has partial merit scholarship at his school
both kids are taking out Staffords up to subsidized amount all four years (though they will be subsidized loans only for the overlap years)
both kids work in the summer and during term time
I went back to work PT (FT is not possible due to medical issues) and every penny goes to EFC, plus DH has a portion of current earnings going straight to EFC as well
we will tap into home equity for a portion of EFC for the two overlap years</p>
<p>I debated going back to work, as I knew it would increase our EFC, but there was no guarantee that FA with a lower income would come in the form of grants. So, at least I can feel good that we are borrowing less than we originally expected, though losing five years of my income while on medical leave (and it was the five years before S1 went to college, at that) had a big effect on college savings, too.</p>
<p>We are still funding the 401(k) plans and take cheap vacations. We refinanced the house to a 15 year loan nine years ago, so the mortgage pays off within a couple of years of S2’s graduation. We have been living cheaply since they were born, so we have learned the drill by now. It was our shared goal to get the kids wherever they needed to be. However, I look at my neighbors across the street and feel pangs as I see them doing the dream renovation we have talked about for years. (They had two in college last year; both attended a state school, one just graduated.) We are deferring some house maintenance during the overlap years. </p>
<p>I am overwhelmingly thankful we have excellent medical coverage and life insurance policies on both of us.</p>