<p>I know someone who retired early (engineer), with wife still working in a lucrative job, to pursue a hobby full time (artistic). Is doing some work on commission, on his own schedule. I am sure he helps his adult children quite a bit. My H will retire when youngest is out of college, but he was older when we got married and had kids, so he’s considerably over 50! I don’t think I would retire early if it restricted my spending so much that I couldn’t help my kids out. Theoretically speaking, of course, as I am not working now.</p>
<p>mom2collegekids–it is plenty easy if your salary supports that, if not, it’s not worth going to grad school. A single adult living in reasonable housing in a town with a reasonable cost of living should EASILY be able to pay that off in 5 years with a salary of 70K or better. Now, if they want a luxury apartment in Manhattan, nope, not going to happen, but that is a choice then isn’t it. While the numbers were smaller, my student loan debt/income ratio was the same-amount of debt equaled starting salary out of college. I had my loans paid off in 4 years along with saving for a downpayment on a house and paying for my own wedding.</p>
<p>As for retiring at 50, a LOT of people do that. Again, they are savers, invest wisely, live well within their means, etc. Heck, I know some 30 year olds that could retire if they wanted to because they made sound financial decisions and have a boatload of money in the bank/investments that would support their current life style for 80+ years. It’s all about choices.</p>
<p>OP, it is time for you to figure out plan B. $30k per year for grad school is crazy and very unfair to ask your parents who no longer have any inclination to keep funding such endeavor. It is going to be a lot harder without your parents help but it can be done. A lot and in fact most of people I know including me go to grad school part time financed by their regular day job. It takes longer but you won’t be owing a lot in loans that take years to pay off.</p>
<p>Some interesting statements. Steve - did you do all of this recently or a long time ago? I figured out that my starting salary was the equivalent of mid-40’s in today’s dollars while my rent on a studio apartment in the best neighborhood of Manhattan was $700 a month. While one could get a job for an equivalent salary, rent would be at least 3 X that amount. Housing prices in most areas where you can get a job for $70,000 a year are much more expensive (still) than they were when most of us were buying our first house. And education was much, much cheaper too.</p>
<p>Also, people with investments that they expect to live on for the next 40 years need to think about every contingency. If you have a pension with cost of living adjustments, that’s great (although promises can be broken). Otherwise - interest rates on very safe investments right now are zero while inflation is at least 2%. The stock market ??? Real estate ??? who knows?</p>
<p>Best bet is to keep working and sock away as much money as you can for yourself and future generations.</p>
<p>I know a couple of people who plan on “skidding” into retirement under the current administration. They’re late 50’s and have no assets (to speak of). Just waiting for the health care resolution to get more focused, will collect unemployment for 26+ weeks, float on savings and PT work for 3 years and collect SS at 62. Different strokes for different folks…</p>
<p>honestly I still smell a ■■■■■ – sorry OP if your second story is the truth, but it still sounds fishy to me.</p>
<p>I want to know what line of work those 30 year olds are in. I want to work for only 12 years and be able to live off savings for the next 50… (not really. I’d go insane from boredom.)</p>
<p>■■■■■ or not, this is a good thread. Some parents need to know it’s okay to set limits for their financial support of their adult children. </p>
<p>When I decided to get my teaching credential after earning my BA, it never occurred to me to ask my parents to pay for it. They had paid for everything up to that point including buying me a car.</p>
<p>^I am with you, I don’t believe for a second that it is common place. The most likely way you get there before turning 50 in that short amount of time is through uncommon mean and situation that they were fortunate enough to have been in for whatever reason. If you are talking about sound and wise investment, we should be talking about beating the market by some small percentage points, otherwise, we are talking about basically taking huge risk and betting on something and was lucky to have beaten the odds.</p>
<p>The only sure way to do it is to live within your means and save. Most people can do it but not a very easy thing to do given human nature.</p>
<p>
I work for myself. I have to PAY unemployment on myself but I can NEVER collect it. So unreasonable. </p>
<p>And finding that PT job is tough these days. What will these “skidders” be doing?</p>
<p>Yup, I agree that it’s a good thread. Both sides are perfectly reasonable – it’s certainly reasonable to set a limit on helping with undergrad only (that’s certainly what we’ve told our kids, and they aren’t even getting through undergrad debt-free), and at the same time, it’s certainly reasonable to think about giving one’s child a wonderful gift of less debt if helping with grad school can be managed without too much sacrifice for the parents. How much is “too much sacrifice” is of course up to each individual or couple to decide.</p>
<p>I’d like to see somebody run the numbers on a retirement at thrity given typical investment returns and salary over the past decade. I knew a couple people who did it but they were basically internet millionaires. If you start a business that’s wildly successful, sure. But working a job, being frugal, and investing? Not without significant luck, IMO. </p>
<p>If you had a very high salary and were dumping 70% of it into Apple since the recent crash. maybe you build a reasonable nestegg. That’s a little risky for my blood. I call that lucky, not wise.</p>
<p>By 45, sure. Not me though. Lucky I don’t mind working (too much) because I’m horrible with money.</p>
<p>“I have to PAY unemployment on myself but I can NEVER collect it.”</p>
<p>Yeah, seems wrong, don’t it?</p>
<p>On a related note, one doesn’t always have to retire. In certain lines of work it’s possible to self-downsize by reducing work hours. I’ve been considering reducing my hours to 32 a week, over 4 days a week. That would give me a 3 day weekend to hang out with my wife, who doesn’t “work” but still works, if you know what I mean. I really want to do it now before I’m really old and in a coma and can’t play Pinochle or stare into my wife’s beautiful eyes while slurping diet soda out of plastic cup at In-N-Out Burger. As many of you know, that “golden years” crap was total crap concocted by federal actuaries to make the workforce work longer, and just long enough not to die right after mandated retirement.</p>
<p>OP, your father might donate more to charity than help you with the debt. From your 3 posts here, it seems that you don’t have a close relationship with him.</p>
<p>If my kids not taking my options on how they should pursue their higher education, I find it hard for me to contribute. Just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>So my kid asked me in her junior to fund graduate school and I said no. I think she’s already too lucky compare to some of her relatives who received no help from their parents. She quickly went to plan B and did start a business to fund what she wanted to do without going to graduate school. Could we afford it, yes, but I refused to pay for something that’s not even has a remote chance of getting a job in her chosen field when she graduates. I paid for her 4 years to play, will not pay for graduate school.
EDIT: I mean I can’t fund every frivolous ideas that go through my kids mind. I also told second kid to pick a good major with a job potential because she will be on her own(financial wise) when she graduates, most likely H&I will be retired.
As for retiring in your 50s, perhaps this person is lucky enough to have a pension and not be a internet millionaires.</p>
<p>If you have already asked and been rebuffed twice to date by dad, it sounds like you already have your answer about him as a potential source of funding.</p>
<p>There ARE programs which provide funding for graduate school IF you have what their programs are looking for and are VERY competitive, depending on the field. One of my friends had both of her Ds get their grad school fully funded–one is getting her PhD from Cornell and the other is getting her Master’s in English from a well-known SCarolina U.</p>
<p>With you already helping support your mom, taking on high debt with no guarantee of a well-paying job seems like something best avoided.</p>
<p>There are many master’s programs that are not funded.</p>
<p>Telling somebody to go find a master’s program that is funded is silly when most aren’t.</p>
<p>Other than that,
I do like reading different opinions.</p>
<p>Well there are also a lot of masters programs that could be less costly than $60K or so that the OP is talking about. The duration of masters programs also varies considerably, from one year (a friend’s D got her masters in psychology from Harvard in one year) to several years, full-time school or part-time while working. I know several folks who have gotten a masters and even PhD while working full-time–not easy but it CAN be done.</p>
<p>Everyone on here cannot be on marriage number one. Doesn’t anybody wonder what the dynamics are with the step-mom? I am still married to my first husband and baby daddy ( lol), but I think the second marriage changes things. Are there other children? Step-children? I was not in the help out your kid corner before, but I have many more questions with the OP being the daughter and I do not remember a step-mom in post one.</p>
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<p>Unless you can get funding or help, your spidey sense is telling you that this grad program is not for you. I would work, pay off your current undergrad debt and save money for a more reasonably costing grad program.</p>