@thumper1 First off, congrats on all of this. You are among the 1% of the people (or less?) in the country who were in the position of having no debt and being able to pay for college up front with ease. This is typically for those who grew up with some money in the family, or have two working professional incomes, or were extremely, extremely diligent budgeters and savers. I have to assume you are in at least one of those buckets! And it’s awesome to be able to have accomplished that.
As for us, we’re doing ok. Many would say we’re in an excellent positions, I tend to be more of a worry wort financially. We have only one professional income (mine). My spouse has only recently returned to work and has been working 20 hours per week. The pay is low.
I’ve managed to save for 20 years maxing our pre-tax retirement (and a little post-tax).
We have no credit card debt, just a monthly for fixed costs we pay off as part of the budget, getting our 2-4% cash back.
We have one car loan. Typically we have always had one, and when one is paid off, we re-up on the other car. So far, we’ve always borrowed for cars at 0.9 to 2.25 rates, which is part of the reason we financed (those rates are appreciating slower or at the rate of inflation).
I’ve set aside the first year’s tuition cost, and that is before the 2K per month we can put toward college money. I’d like to spread that current amount over a few years if all goes well.
I work in an industry where a large chunk of the pay is via end of year bonus. At the end of 2018, the company I worked for did something they had never done before, and slashed bonuses tremendously. This was unexpected to all. It caught us off guard, let’s just say that it was a few years of tuition missed. The company had an unprecedented bad year in 2018, and fortunately is doing very well in 2019. It’s a bonus, and never should be counted on, but in my industry, the bonus could be counted on in almost every year. In my experience, from 2003 to 2019, the only years where bonuses were terrible was 2008 and this past year, 2018. I plan to take all of the bonus money at this year’s end, and put it toward college funds for the kids.
And in truth, if our life situation drastically changes between now and 2020-2024, it will indeed affect kids #2 and #3. It may not be fair, but that’s life I guess. The good news is while #1 was a good student (3.5 gpa, 1300 sat) and got some decent merit, kids #2 and #3 are several levels better academically, and I can hope that they keep it up, and that it will help offset some of the risk. #3 has had an unweighted GPA over 4.0 all year - I am wondering who her real father is 