We will probably not qualify for FA. Even if we did, my son is not a strong enough student to expect to get any and for the very limited amount we might get, I don’t think it’s wise to even ask if it will reduce his chances of admission. Our LPS is not an option for my son and he needs academic support, so this is really the only option for us.
We have retirement savings and have saved for college, This will probably wipe a lot of that out. (school+ academic support are projected to be 73-79k/yr). While I’m not comfortable with that, I also am not comfortable with NOT sending LIzardKid to BS.
Here’s the kicker. I don’t work, so I feel awful for not having more saved. At the time, we had no idea that we would ever be looking at BS and it was the decision that made sense for our family. One of the reasons I have not gone back is I needed to transport DS to and from private school, plus tutoring and other obligations. I’ve been out of my profession so long, it would not be easy to jump back in. At this point, going back to another job will not bring in much money, but it will be something.
How much of your retirement/college savings are you willing to use to pay for BS? What else are you willing to sacrifice? We are not ones to take vacations or buy fancy cars, so the obvious things aren’t jumping out at me.
One of the schools on our list is a school specifically for kids with learning differences. Because of this, we’d be able to take a deduction for medical expenses on our taxes. This would move the most expensive school to less expensive than the other schools if you figure academic support into the admission price. This school is not currently DS first choice. I’m thinking although he has driven this process, it might come down to going to the one that would be more affordable. I think this choice would be easier if it was an apples to apples comparison, rather than two completely different types of schools.
@vwlizard, I believe that this is a very sensitive issue that only you and your spouse can answer as the consequences of jeopardizing your financial security are the consequences only you will have to live with. I would strongly advise talking to your financial planner (or get one if you don’t have one) about what the ramifications of a BS investment will look like for your future.
Personally, I would not have liquidated any of our retirement savings for BS and, most likely, would not have touched available college savings either but, at the time, 529 funds were not eligible for secondary education and we would not have considered taking the penalty for unqualified use so that option was not even on the table. We did not feel any of our public or private schools were an option for our son either, but we did not need to consider academic support. If the situation had been more dire, I think we would have sold our house and downsized earlier than we did.
@ChoatieMom gave good advice, particularly talking to a financial planner to really understand the ramifications of any decisions you make.
Here is what dh and I would not sacrifice:
We assured our other child (who went to public school) that sending DS to boarding school or private day school would NOT affect her college money/college choice. This was tops for me - his opportunity should not come at her expense!
We would not raid our retirement accts or DS’s college accts, though decreasing(retirement)/ceasing(college) contributions were on the table.
3, We would not raid home equity.
That said, this was a luxury choice for us, not an absolute necessity. Our local public school, while not ideal for ds, would have been “good enough.”
2 and #3 were the same for us, @carpoolingma. We had to cease both retirement and college savings while our son was at BS. We were OK with not adding to those accounts temporarily while paying for BS, but were not OK with liquidating anything from either of them as they were earmarked for other just-as-important (to us) purposes.
I think that might be where we end up as far as not draining, but not contributing.
We are in that weird don’t qualify for aid but can’t easily afford BS hole. I’d love it if we could just get the academic support part covered, which would bring the price down to something not as shocking. You can’t take the medical tax deduction unless the school is specifically for students with learning disabilities.
We have not gone backwards on the equity in the house, nor have we taken any money out of our retirement savings (we couldn’t even if we wanted to because it is locked in). We have decreased our personal spending significantly, we have cancelled things like BarkBox, cable tv, fancy phone plans, etc. We were a 2 vehicle family, we are currently down to one. DH’s transmission went on his old truck, and we aren’t bothering to replace or repair at it this time. I have also not given up my second or third jobs which really don’t take too much time maybe 20 hours a month tops (which I had planned to do).
I only finished college and started working a year before DD went to school, so honestly we had made a lot of changes before to send me to school and we have just continued them. We went so far as to change all the light bulbs to save money on hydro (bonus we have the lowest utilities bills out of anyone I know). So it’s basically like my income doesn’t exist much even though I work a full-time job and 2 casual jobs - 1/2 goes to paying off my school debt, and 1/2 goes to paying for DD’s school.
All of these changes though, mean we aren’t going into debt any more than we started with to speak of, because it is coming directly from paycheck to school payments, which is at least good.
Will not sacrifice our soul…things beyond finances to consider, also! Values and school culture, respect, inclusivity and kindness exhibited by a school are important!
I went back to work full time when our first child went to BS which, with my parents help, just about funded her tuition, It also raised our expenses and our taxes as I had a 2nd child at home who needed a sitter still. When our 2nd child went away, two tuitions were beyond what we could pay out of earnings. Ultimately, we sold our house in a wildly popular suburb that I was more than ready to leave, and bought one upstate for 1/3 of the price. Phew what a relief! My advice is if there is something you can do to take some of the fiscal pressure off and make life tolerable, like downsize, I would definitely do it. There used to be talk here about joining the “rice OR beans” club, and I am very happy to no longer count myself a member. It was a rough few years. But as my mother used to always say, “I never saw a hearse with luggage racks.”
New cars. People must think we are on our last cent when they see my a la 2003 odyssey about town. I’m actually proud of it and all it’s 288k miles. It’s great for hauling stuff to school and for college visits as it gets great gas mileage.
Oh we definitely qualify for the old car club! Until this year, was sporting a 2003 Toyota Sienna, beige of course. I bet there are still cheerios under the seats.
Funny thing is, I’m sure people that don’t know about BS think everyone is pulling up in a Mercedes or Rover.
I reluctantly got rid of my 10-year-old minivan last summer because it was going to cost more to fix the A/C than the van was worth, which I still would have sunk into it, but it was always a struggle to get through my neighborhood and driveway without AWD. First thought was, this would have been handy for move in/outs.
Wow! We are riding in luxury in our 2008 Camry!! But In my vehicle I have no A/C. I can’t bring myself to spend the money to fix it. I figure the sweat will help my loose weight and the dehydration will get me tipsy faster, lowering my wine budget!
And I’ve considered selling a kidney. Any takers??
We finally bought a newer car in 2016 when we let our son take our 2004 Yukon to school our west for his sophomore year in college. Lots of great family trips over the years in that car.
So we don’t just have the 2003 Ody…we have a second minivan! Yup, a two minivan family coming from the person who had an MR2 two-seater in college. With three kids, two standard poodles, and many trips to Maine, it was the only way to go. It’s a ripe old 2012 Sienna.
I guess we are in the new but practical car category, with a newish Honda and newer Jeep, but we replaced my 14-year-old, nearly 300K miles Civic and a 17-year-old Jeep, so it seems justified. Getting a Hybrid has also been a life saver.
I did feel like I’d seen it all when I was dropping DS off after Easter and some other kids were being dropped off by a driver.
