Personal Finance Advice

While one way to cut the cost of college is take AP classes, many cost saving college pundits suggest another is going to a less expensive community college rather than starting straight off at a more expensive 4-year university. I agree with them. I also think those savings should also be claimed by high school [...]

Oh the AP tests. One 4-hour exam can determine the fate of a whole college course. The 1st two weeks each May, high schoolers across the US gather at testing sites to spill their brains onto their testing booklets in the hopes of proving they are worthy of college credit. Here are the basics. This [...]

My neighbors’ oldest child just left for college this fall. Watching him load his car with electronics, clothes, and “stuff,” headed for his new apartment, I started reminiscing about when I was just starting out. When I was younger, I lived a life that made others think I was poverty stricken. I didn’t live that [...]

By David John Marotta and Beth Anderson Nedelisky The average college student graduates with almost $20,000 in student loans. While this is a daunting sum, it is still possible to build wealth even while paying off student debt. But earning the degree and paying for the degree require two different kinds of smarts. In fact, [...]

By David John Marotta If your credit card minimum payment was $10 and you repaid it every month for 15 1/2 years with an accruing interest of 15.9%, a $1,000 purchase would end up costing $2,250. Every time you use your credit card to pay for something you risk it being marked up two and [...]

Babies draw. Toddlers draw. Kids draw. They color from the first time they get a crayon in their hand to the time they learn to write, as sketches and drawings are their best way of written communication and expression. As parents, we become extraordinarily fond of the smacked-on dots and lines when babies learn to [...]

A few years ago, my parents’ church was collecting Campbell’s Soup labels for a school that was saving them up to get a van. I hate to throw away anything that somebody can use, so I started saving my family’s labels, but the collection jar was gone by the time I actually remembered to take [...]

For the first day of kindergarten, I walked in to my daughter’s classroom and at each child’s place at the table lay 3 pennies. These were fake pennies, but as our kindergarten information packet stated, they were worth something. Every day, the children get three pennies, which they put in designated containers. Every four or [...]

I remember my mother being hit with that little piece of paper once a year: the school supply list specifying discretely the ways your child will be ridiculed if you skip something, or worse, choose to empty your wallet on alternative items. I know, I was sometimes that child. I think a kid bit me [...]

The idea of getting a college education for the sake of learning how to think has become passé. Now, young people see college as an investment, thinking, “If I (or my parents) pay to earn a degree now, I can make more money later.” In many cases, the investment pays off. Most high-paying jobs require [...]

I think almost every week I hear someone who makes over $70k a year mention their wonderful student loan interest tax deduction. It’s time to take a few minutes to educate the masses about the student loan interest. Plain and simple, if you make a good wage you will not qualify for the student loan [...]

Knowing the best course of action to take on your student loans is often a difficult maze to work your way through. That is the question from this reader: I was looking into federal student loan consolidation on a $12,828.19 student loan (now at 7.22% – pretty high). I was offered 7% after consolidation and [...]

You’ve finally done it — earned that coveted diploma. You’re feeling a bit cocky. Your parents are wondering why they had to pay for your expensive education when you already knew everything. Now it’s time to enter The Real World, the place that you have talked about for years as if it were a planet [...]

This is a question that Chicago Tribune columnist Gregory Karp asks in his latest column while giving the following quiz: 1. You desperately want a new baseball glove that costs $50 but you only have $30 saved. What should you do? A) Wait until you save $20 more from weekly allowances. B) Borrow money from [...]

Kids and money. It is an important subject, but one where if can often be confusing on what is the best way to teach financial fundamentals. That is the question that this reader asks: I am looking for suggestions on the best way to give allowance to my kids. One is 10 and the other [...]

Most of those who attend college don’t have their parents paying for it or have a scholarship that pays for a full ride. That means that they are responsible for at least a portion of the cost of going to college. I think a lot of young people would be in a lot better financial [...]

If you have kids, one of the issues that you need to consider is what you are going to do about college expenses and if you do decide to save money to pay for college expenses, where is the best place to put that money. That is what this following question from a reader is [...]

In order to justify expensive purchases, many people, including plenty of otherwise very intelligent folks, like to refer to certain types of spending sprees as “investments.” Luckily for me, from the time I was about four years old, my father took any opportunity he could to tell me that anything that loses value after you [...]

Sometimes a situation arises when you must make a decision on whether to use money that you had earmarked for a specific event for something other than its intended purpose. These financial decisions can be some of the hardest to make and is one that I recently received from a reader who wanted to get [...]

According to a recent Charles Schwab Financial Services survey of 1000 teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18, the average teenager believes that they will earn an annual salary of $145,000 a year. Teenage boys believe that they will earn an annual salary of $173,000 while girls believe they will earn an annual salary [...]