College Costs: 8 Tips to Take Control

By Kerrie Beene, CFP®

As the parent of an upcoming senior, I have a lot of questions regarding sending my daughter to college. While it is still about a year away, the planning has to start now or opportunities will be missed.

Going on campus tours, evaluating majors, filling out admission applications, and searching for scholarships is top priority. These are decisions that must be taken seriously and with caution, especially with the changing dynamics of the college environment because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The other elephant in the room is the massive student loan debt crisis we are facing in the United States. According to Forbes, there are around 45 million borrowers with a massive $1.6 trillion dollar student loan debt. U.S. Student loan debt is now the second highest consumer debt category - behind only mortgage debt - and higher than both credit cards and auto loans. Student loans are very easy to qualify for and the effect on the parents or students financial future is not always understood.

As parents or guardians, how are we supposed to navigate all of these fears and decisions? Knowing when and if a student loan should be taken or if one college vs. another is the right choice.

These are questions I am personally facing, as well as, our college planning clients. Below, I want to share a collection of questions we are currently be asked:

• Should every child go to college?

• Is it worth the cost to send my child to college?

• Should they go to a community college or junior college first?

• Should they go online?

• We have saved some money, but how do I fill the gaps?

• Do we rule out colleges that are more expensive?

• I want my child to go to their dream school, but how do I pay for it?

• If necessary, what kind of student loans should we take out and what are the consequences?

• How do we know when the amount of student loans we are taking out is too much?

• Should I consider a Home Equity Line of Credit instead of a student loan?

• I know we do not qualify for federal or state grants, should we still fill it out?

How do we address all the stresses and questions we face?

First, start now! Regardless of your child’s age, there is always something to do. This is the elephant we eat one small bite at a time.

Bite Size Steps to Take:

1. Consider the options, such as college, trade school, or other specialty schools.

2. Figure out a ball park range of the education costs for the required degree/certification.

3. Take into consideration how much time you have until the first tuition bill comes.

4. Educate yourself on the savings options available, such as a 529 Education Savings Account or other investment options.

5. If your child is in high school, have a heart to heart talk about the costs of continuing their education and the importance of applying for scholarships and giving serious thought to their major and future.

6. Create a timeline (some colleges are already accepting applications for upcoming high school seniors).

7. Research and create a study plan for taking the ACT and/or SAT.

8. Considering reaching out to a financial planner who specializes in college planning. (Here at Rooted Planning Group, this is one of our specialties.)

If you are a parent of a future college student, we hope these tips gets you started. If you are interested in college planning, check out this video on what the process looks like for our college planning clients.

3 Biggest Money Mistakes

By Kerrie Beene, CFP®

For the past few weeks at Rooted Planning Group, we have been focusing on education. We have introduced Sammy the Rabbit as a great free resource to teach your kids about money. We have also been giving money tips to young people and recent graduates. However, one of the best ways to learn is by learning from mistakes. Often these are mistakes we make on our own but hopefully we can also learn from other’s mistakes. Below are the 3 biggest mistakes I have personally made with money.

Automobile Purchases - I love vehicles. I know the make, model, and trim level of every vehicle owned by anyone I know. I like helping others pick out vehicles and researching them online. If I had a never ending flow of money I would own multiple vehicles.

However, a vehicle is a depreciating asset. This means it will go down in value beginning with the moment you make the purchase. The mistake I made was trading my paid for car in for a different one. The car I had was a great car and was paid for but I decided it was time for an upgrade. I convinced myself it was smart because I was buying a used vehicle. The reality was that I did not need one, I just wanted one.

According to Experian, the average car payment in 2019 was $554 per month. I can’t remember exactly what my car payment was when I did this, but If I had driven that car for at least 10 years and invested that car payment instead in something that could have earned around 5%, I could have had over $85,000 saved. This money would be very helpful right now as I prepare to start sending my children off to college. So, it is not always can you afford the payment, you also have to think about what are you sacrificing by having to make the payment.

The other mistake that people often make is trading in a vehicle that is not worth what they owe on it. This is called being upside down on the vehicle. Unfortunately, car dealerships will just let you roll that negative amount into your new loan. That means if you buy a $20,000 car and you trade in your vehicle that you are upside down on, your $20,000 will cost you way more because of the negative equity you brought over from the other loan.

Not Having Enough Savings - One of the hardest things for most of us to do is maintain a very hefty bank account. One of the most common terms you hear when people talk about savings is the “emergency savings.” This is 3 to 6 months of expenses in case of job loss or some other event. The idea being that you could live without an income for that period of time by using your emergency savings.

While we seem to maintain a savings balance, keeping 6 months of expenses has been very hard to maintain over the years. It seems like things that are not actually emergencies, like replacing tires or other expected expenses, sometimes cause us to dip into our emergency fund. These expected expenses are not emergencies, we know we will need to replace tires.

Maintaining the discipline to save for things we know we will need in the future is one of the most powerful skills to a successful future. Figure out when you will need the item and the price and start setting aside the money now.

Time - Time seems to slip away so quickly. This is probably the biggest mistake I have made over the years is thinking I will take care of something later.

This upcoming school year my daughter will be a senior and then heading off to college. While we have saved some money for college, we are not quite where would we like. Time has gone so quickly and I did not maximize the time I had to prepare for the upcoming expense. It always seemed like something in the future. Yesterday she was 12 and soon she will be 18.

This is my biggest piece of advice, do not wait until later to start saving for something. The sooner you start to save for something, the smaller amount you may need to save.

Become a Financial Smarty Pants

By Kerrie Beene, CFP®

National Financial Literacy Month is recognized in the United States in April to highlight the importance of financial literacy and teach Americans healthy financial habits.  Throughout the last few weeks at Rooted Planning Group, we have tried to learn as much as we can about the CARES Act and pass that knowledge along to all of our clients and readers. But today, we want to pivot and teach you how to increase the other areas of your financial literacy and  make you an official Financial Smarty Pants.   Below are some terms and components that we feel are important to have strong financial literacy knowledge.

Emergency Savings - what does that even mean and do I really need one?

While it is common knowledge we need to have money set aside, having an emergency savings is the most important savings you should have.  I do believe the current situation we are in with COVID-19, highlights just how important it is to have emergency savings.  We recommend that you have 3 to 6 months of expenses set aside in case you and/or your spouse/partner lose your source of income.  This means you need to be able to pay your bills and provide food and other necessities for 3 to 6 months without receiving any income. 

Interest Rate - this can work for you or against you (hopefully for you most of the time)

Interest rates can work for you when you save your money.  For example, depositing it into a savings account, money market account, or Certificate of Deposit (CD).  Often the interest rate is quoted annually but can be calculated for periods shorter than that.  The bank will deposit a certain amount into your account monthly, quarterly, or annually.  

Example, if your savings account pays a 5% interest and the balance is $1,000, the interest you will earn annually is $50.

This is called simple interest and here is the calculation - $1,000 (amount) x 0.05 (APR) x 1 (Number of Years)

Simple interest is a very basic understanding of how interest rates work, however, things are not always that simple, especially when you borrow money.  

Interest rates work against you when you borrow money. Often lenders will state the interest rate as an APR or Annual Percentage Rate.  This is very important because this is a way for you to calculate what something is actually costing.  The APR will be the amount the lender will charge you for using their money.  

Example, if you purchase a $20,000 automobile, pay $2,000 down, and borrow $18,000 for 5 years, the interest you pay on your loan will be $2,381.  This makes the total cost for purchasing the vehicle $22,381 vs. the $20,000.  

Auto loans are often calculated using simple interest.  Bankrate has a great calculator I use often when calculating auto costs.  I am personally getting ready to buy my daughter a car before she heads off to college in a year and have been doing a lot of research.  In addition to the Bankrate calculator, two other resources I recommend is Episode 38 of Amy’s Wine and Dime Podcast on this subject and Financial Mentor’s calculator that shows the true cost of owning a car.  This is detailed and shows the annual cost of owning a car and the cost per mile. It also allows you to compare two potential purchases.  

Your Home Mortgage is another example of borrowing money and while every lender calculates differently, the important takeaway is that you need to think long and hard about your home purchase and the true cost of your home.  NerdWallet has a  mortgage calculator that compares a 15 year mortgage vs. a 30 year mortgage. 15 year rates are often lower than 30 year rates.  But also remember that you will also have homeowners insurance and property taxes. 

Example - $100,000 Home, $20,000 Down Payment, Financing $80,000.  What will it actually cost you if you finance for 15 years and 30 years?

Total Cost for a 15 Year Mortgage with a 3.4% Interest Rate - $122,238

Total Cost for a 30 Year Mortgage with a 4.1% Interest Rate - $159,162

Final Note for your Financial Smarty Pants self on Interest Rates

Always, always, always, think about what interest rates are doing for you or what the rate is costing you when you purchase something.

So far, we have learned the importance of emergency savings, interest rates working for us and against… So what else is important to become a smarty pants??

Risk Management - what?? 

Risk management is a very fancy smarty pants way to say you need insurance.  I won’t go into too big of a spill about insurance because this is a subject that needs its own article but this is one of the areas we see clients making mistakes on, not litigating risk.  You need to have health insurance, property (home, auto, and umbrella) insurance, and other fun stuff like short term and long term disability.  Often, these can be provided by your employer but if not, this is something you may need to purchase from an outside source. 

Retirement and Investing

Saving for retirement and investing money can be a very intimidating subject.  For one, I believe this is one of the reasons we have financial literacy month.  Also, there are so many different types of financial people out in the world throwing all kinds of fancy jargon, like asset allocation, mutual funds, ETFs, IRA, Roth IRa, etc. How is a person supposed to know all of these terms and if these products are right for them?  This is something we find important to educate our clients on and as Certified Financial Planner’s at Rooted Planning Group, that is what we do with our clients.  

Here are a few terms and components of retirement and invest that we think are important.

Retirement Savings - Money that you save while you are working that is set aside to use during the years you are no longer able or want to work.  The earlier you start to save, the easier it is to accumulate a significant amount of savings set aside for your retirement. This can be accomplished through your employer in a 401k or other type of employer savings account.  This can also be accomplished if you are self employed through Traditional IRA’s, Roth IRA’s or other investments savings account.  Additionally, to increase your smarty pants knowledge, IRA stands for Individual Retirement Account. 

This subject brings the second important term we want you to learn:

Compound Interest

I know we talked about interest above but if you can get this term down, it will change your life. This is an interest that you want working in your favor.  Rumor has it that Einstein called the Power of Compound Interest, the 8th Wonder of the World. “He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn’t, pays it.”

Here is a quick video on what compound interest is and on how it can work for you while saving. 

Compound Interest - 8th Wonder of the World

Compound interest is important because this is how you get momentum when saving for retirement with investments. So what are investments?

Investments

Investments are another one of those things that can be very intimidating and confusing and financial people also are anonymous for throwing jargon around sometimes.  The biggest takeaway from this is, if you do not understand something, do not invest in the product.  Find an advisor that is willing to educate you on what you are actually investing in or educate yourself first and then invest.  I will, however, increase your financial smarty pants knowledge with a few terms below that are common when it comes to investing.

Stocks - a stock is a piece of a company that you can purchase. Companies will sell shares of their stock to raise cash. Investors can buy and sell these shares. Sometimes, a stock can have a high return and gain you money when you sell the stock. But, this can also lose money if you purchase a company that does not do well (or closes their doors).  Buying and selling stocks can be risky. The best thing you can do to help with the risk is to educate yourself and/or find an advisor that is also an educator at heart. 

Bonds - a bond is a loan you make to a company or government. When you purchase a bond, you are allowing the bond issuer to borrow your money and pay you back with interest.  Bonds are generally considered safer than stocks, but they also generally offer lower returns.  Bonds are issued by a lot of different companies, as well as the government.

My favorite example is building a stadium. The owners of stadiums cannot afford to just build a stadium, so one way to finance it would be to issue bonds. You could purchase a bond from the stadium owners and allow them to use your money; once the stadium is built, they will repay you the amount you loaned them through the purchase of the bond plus interest on the bond.   

Mutual Funds - if investing in individual stocks does not sound like fun to you, then mutual funds are a great way to invest. There are a ton of complex definitions of mutual funds however, I like to explain it like this: visualize stocks (companies) like Easter eggs, now a mutual fund is the Easter egg basket. If a mutual fund is an Easter egg basket, then inside of it you can have all kinds and colors of Easter eggs (companies).  Now there are thousands of mutual funds out there to purchase, so again educate yourself on the fund and the expenses of owning the fund. 

And, to add to your smarty pants knowledge, you do not just go and purchase a stock or mutual fund, you have to have opened some type of an account and the stock or fund is purchased inside that account.  

There are other types of investments like Index Funds and ETF’s (Exchange Traded Funds) but they are 1st and second cousins to the mutual fund.  This is where your head may start to hurt so we will end here.  

There are other important terms to keep in mind like credit, credit score, asset allocation (fancy way of saying make sure all of the eggs in your basket are not the same color), re-balancing, itemized vs standard deduction, and I could go on and on.  

We at Rooted Planning Group love to educate so reach out anytime to any one of us if you have a question.  I hope you feel like a Financial Smarty Pants and that your pants get bigger everyday!

Wealth and Focus: 5 Ways to Be More Productive and Maintain Focus

By by Kerrie Beene, CFP®

Are you trying to create healthy habits this year that will increase both your wealth and your focus? We'll, here are my top five suggestions to help you with those goals.

1. Plan Ahead

   • Find time in your week to see what all is ahead of you.  If your work week starts on Monday, look at your calendar on Sunday and start planning. Include everything; meetings, appointments, child events, personal obligations, doctor appointments, etc. 

   • Utilize a planner (online or paper) and choose to be organized with your time. 

   • For events with a time and date, put them in your calendar.  For things that just need to get done, write them down or use an app like google tasks.  I have gone paperless this year and am loving my google calendar and google tasks add on. Google tasks also allows you to put dates on tasks, which helps when things need done by a certain time.  Here is a quick video on google tasks.   

2. Prioritize

   • After your weekly review, go through everything and set priorities. This is to respect yourself, your time, and other people you have an appointment scheduled 

   • This is where calendars and task management comes in handy. 

3. Time Block

   • Here is a quick video on time blocking

   • This takes some time getting used to but once you get the hang of it you will get more down

   • Another helpful tool is using an app to track your time.  This is very helpful because sometimes things do not take the amount of time we thought.  We use an app called clockify on our laptops and phones.  This allows you to manually track things or just log them as you go.  

4. Exercise

   • There are so many studies that have proven over and over that we need to exercise.   This is for our overall health and helps keep our mind clear and focused at work. Just schedule it and get it done!  And if you need 10 reasons to do it, here is an article. 

5. Say “No” Sometimes

   • This comes back to priorities.  As busy adults, with jobs and families, these meetings and tasks can get overwhelming.  Just decided what is most important to you and stick to it! We no longer want to be superman or wonder woman.  It is not worth the sacrifice required to be everything for everyone. Do what you can and say “no” to some things!