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Making College as Affordable as Possible
This is the fifth in a series of blog posts about bargain hunting and ways to save money; when you spend less on the necessities in life, you and your family can use the money you’ve saved for the more important or fun things in life – vacations, a down payment on a new home, updating your interior, or some long-needed remodeling. To see all of my ‘Bargain Hunter’ posts, click here.
With college semester starting just around the corner, I thought I’d write briefly about ways in which we have saved some money here and there on our own daughter’s very expensive adventure.
The first thing we did with our daughter was to sit down with her and talk about the expense of going to school; treating her as the adult she is, we discussed how we (she, my husband, and I) would be financing her education. The three of us came to the decision that, because she was going to school nearby, living at home the first year would save her quite a bit of money. She could, after all, move to campus next fall and enjoy the “college experience.”
The three of us also decided that, at least for her first semester, she could take 4 courses instead of the typical 5; this would not only save her tuition money, but would allow her a bit more time to work. We took a look at how many hours she’d be able to work with this slightly lighter schedule and how much she would be able to save out of each paycheck. The amount was fairly high considering that she would be living at home. We calculated that with her living at home, taking 4 courses, and working the maximum amount of hours her schedule would allow, that she would be able to save enough during her first year to cover the cost of campus housing for two years.
The other area we focused on to try to save some cash was her books. Textbooks for college are, without a doubt, extremely expensive. We decided to find out early what textbooks she would need; we then took the list and spent some time browsing online bookstores such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, half.com, and eFollett.com. We found it was helpful to first go to some meta-sites to find comparisons of online retail prices. A few of the best ones we found were: bestbookbuys.com, bigwords.com, and cheapesttextbooks.com. During our searches, we even discovered that our daughter could rent books through a number of online stores like chegg.com, bookrenter.com, and campusbookrentals.com. We will, at some point, probably look to find if there might be e-books available as well.
Saving and paying for college can be challenging, especially because, as parents, we want the very best for our children, but it’s important to remain realistic about your situation and what you can reasonably afford. Being in debt for years isn’t going to hurt anyone. What are some of your ideas of keeping expenses down for a college education?
Photo Credit: KDDesigners.com via Creative Commons 3.0
