$20K before 18 -- part one (have a plan)

A significant part of preparing our kids for college was preparing them for the financial burden of paying for higher education.

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal compared various college graduates including their college, their post-graduate income, and their debt. These were interesting statistics, and all that I looked at included some debt. It is generally acceptable for graduates to come away with as much debt as they expect to earn in the first year beyond college.

We wanted to shake that up a bit, and prefer starting with no debt. $0. Nada. Zip.

So, we needed a plan.


This was an area I feel we actually did something right as parents, and I share some of our thinking and practices to help others wanting to start their kids off on the best foot financially.

First, a bit about what we did not do, and what we are not.

We are not independently wealthy, nor are any of our kids.

Our families do not own some massive fortunes or companies or anything like that.

We didn't find buried treasure in our backyard. Or gold bars in our basement. Or old stocks from some now thriving company.

I have never played the lottery (and therefore never won the lottery).

Our kids are not natural born, or self-taught entrepreneurs. And, pretty much any attempt we made to encourage this avenue has been shut down pretty quickly.

None of use are YouTube sensations, celebrity bloggers, or video game aficionados.

I don't have off shore accounts and am not particularly adept at playing the stock market.

These principles just require years of hard work. That's all.

Sorry, no get-rich-quick deal or secrets that will open a formerly unknown treasure trove for you. Just hard work.

That all started with a plan - start teaching them young, instill the value of hard work, help them set goals, live it out in front of them. With the goal - setting them up to graduate college debt free.

So far, our oldest has already done this. Our second is a year away from achieving this, and the rest seem to be on track at this point, although time will tell (at nine years old, we have no idea what the next twelve years will bring for that guy). 

And, it does start when they are quite young. Which will be where I pick up in the next post . . .