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Should I Ruin My Retirement By Helping My Child Through College?

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 102 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Should I Ruin My Retirement By Helping My Child Through College?Today’s topic will probably be a touchy one and it’s all about whether or not parents should start (or end) saving for children’s college expenses. Ever since I paid off my $38,000 worth of student loans last year, I have received many e-mails from parents who are interested in seeking help for their children.

These e-mails are all related to whether or not parents should risk or sometimes even ruin their retirement by helping their child pay for college.

There is usually one common theme in these e-mails – the parents are usually not on track for retirement, they have debt, or they cannot afford to help their child in college.

Here are some of the stories I have heard in these emails:

  • The parents have over $100,000 in student loans that they took out in THEIR name so their child could go to school. These parents are not on track for retirement and they have a lot of other debt besides student loans.
  • Their child is in medical school and the parents are paying for all of their college expenses plus food, car, rent, etc. These parents are not on track for retirement and they have debt.
  • Their child is in law school and the child said that if his/her parents don’t continue paying for their expenses, that they would hate their parents. This child was even more mad when the parents printed out every single blog post of mine and gave it to them (I did not tell their parents to do that, it was entirely their idea). The child said I was ruining his/her life (yup, that actually happened). These parents are not on track for retirement and they are afraid of losing their child now as well.

I know I’m not a parent.

I’m not a parenting or child expert either. [Read more…]

6 Reasons You’re Horrible At Saving Money

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 53 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Check out the 6 reasons you're horrible at saving money. This is a great list!Hello everyone! Today is my birthday. I am the big ol’ 25 today! 🙂 I plan on relaxing and eating a ridiculous amount of sushi today as my birthday treat.

Anyway, as a personal finance blogger, I hear a lot about everyone else’s money stories.

For the most part, I hear a lot of excuses for why people can’t do things. I’m not saying that there aren’t real excuses out there, but for the most part there are several ways for you to make active changes in your life that will help you reach your goals. [Read more…]

The Problem With the Traditional 8 Hour Work Day

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 39 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Today, we have a post from my friend and personal finance blogger Harry Campbell.  

Harry started blogging about personal finance on his main site Your PF Pro a few years ago and enjoyed it so much that he started a second site dedicated to finding the perfect work-life balance at The Four Hour Work Day.  When Harry is not blogging, he works full-time as an aerospace engineer and enjoys surfing and playing beach volleyball.

Traditionally, in the United States our work days have been 8 hours long and we trudge into the office 5 days per week (and 2 weeks of vacation time is standard).

This pattern dates back to the Industrial Revolution – yeah, the cultural and societal revolution that happened over 200 years ago.  We’re usually a little bit slow to catch up to the rest of the world I guess.

You’d think by now we’d have realized our way of doing work is a little outdated. [Read more…]

What Is Early Retirement?

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 60 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Before I started blogging, I can honestly say that early retirement never once crossed my mind. I thought that the normal age to retire was somewhere around 65 and that would be around the same time that I would retire.

I didn’t think people retired early, and if they did, I thought they were just lucky (which is a little funny if you read my post from the other day – Following Your Passion Is Not Just Luck).

Then, I started blogging and found a few early retirement blogs. Some of these include blogs like Retire by 40, Early Retirement Extreme and Mr. Money Mustache, which all show different people who worked hard to retire early.

I, of course, got hooked on all of these blogs and I knew that chugging along in a job that I didn’t like just wasn’t for me. [Read more…]