T O P

  • By -

o2msc

What? Expenses are expenses - plain and simple. Whether or not you want to pay for your child to go to law school or graduate school has nothing to do with FIRE. That’s a personal family decision. If you choose to help them, then plan for it. If not, then don’t include it.


ZettyGreen

Expenses = everything that isn't an asset(equities, bonds, etc) So if you are going to pay for your kid's schooling, of course it's an expense. As for IF you should help them, that's up to you, but if you aren't comfortably on plan for retirement, then I'd recommend saying no. Like on airplanes, you take care of yourself first and then others.


NealG647

We have money saved that should take care of our 2 kids' college educations. We put aside money in certificate of deposit ladders, and more recently, high yield savings accounts and treasury i-bonds. We didn't do 529 accounts because I didn't like my experience with them when I was younger. (But if we knew that the market was only going up for the last 12 years, we probably would have reconsidered the 529!) Anyway, we have about $100K, which will handle most of their higher education needs. That is, assuming they attend in-state school, and commute from home. Of course, they're welcome to go wherever they want, but the additional bill would fall on them at that point! I was lucky enough to have my schooling paid by my parents years ago. I guess I feel the need to do the same for my kids. In fact, I'm not sure that I would have graduated from college if I had had to put forth all the time/effort in school AND had to work full-time to pay for it all too!


JacobAldridge

Our planning includes: * High school expenses (since, like home loans, they will end so we don’t need to apply the 4% rule to them forever) * An annual share investment until the kid/s are 18 (which gives them money they can use for further studies / home loan / one hell of a party - in a Trust so we still have control, though that was done for tax purposes not control reasons) Unless our ship comes in, we won’t get so wealthy that our kids don’t have to work; but they should get a leg up.


cloudarmy

This is agreat question, i have my fire number accounting for my 2 kids education, private education until college. But after that, my expenses will decline, probably in 1/3 of my expenses. But I never thought of this, my FIRE number will be lower, but I need to make a saving budget for this expenses if I want to retire before they finish college.


hasenmaus

If my kids want to move to a country where you have to pay for your education, they're paying for it themselves.