<p>Big fan here of the local farm store!</p>
<p>We started saving for our kids’ education as soon as we married. We saved for D before she was born and had enough in a zero coupon bonds issued by our state at 9% interest that they could have attended our in-state U and lived in the dorm for all 4 years of college. As it turned out, that wasn’t nearly enough, as they both ended up attending out of state private U, where both thrived. Fortunately, both our incomes rose when both kids were in college, so we were able to handle the high expenses with some economizing, but it wasn’t easy. We also saved for retirement all along and didn’t touch those accounts, so we are comfortable now in retirement.</p>
<p>All in all, we count our blessings that we have been able to live under our income for all these years so we could save for our kids and our retirement and futures. We are glad we had good insurance so we didn’t rack up huge medical bills in spite of chronic health conditions. We are also fortunate that H had a steady job all 45.5 years he worked and that I was able to get decent jobs as needed, which I enjoyed and paid enough to help with expenses.</p>
<p>Here’s a real world example of how we did it (I kept numbers in a spreadsheet): </p>
<p>We have three kids that started private colleges in 2006 2008 and 2011. The total cost for their education was approximately 175k, 220k, and 260k. </p>
<p>The kids covered approximately 1/4 of these cost through aid (some merit, some need based) Stafford loans, and summer jobs.</p>
<p>We covered another 1/4 of costs through college savings and borrowing.</p>
<p>That left us covering 1/2 of the costs out of pocket, or about 30k per kid per year. We were fortunate enough to refinance our mortgage at a lower rate and saved about $500 per month and did not by new cars when the old one were paid off which saved another $500 a month. This saved us $12000 per year. So our additional annual outlay was 18K per year per kid. This is absolutely doable on a 200k salary.</p>
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<p>These are not called staple foods for no reason. A starch base is normal part of a healthy human diet. All those foods that you mention, including potato, have substantial protein content too.</p>
<p>Per Wiki: “Thus, the United Nations officially declared 2008 as the International Year of the Potato, to raise its profile in developing nations, calling the crop a “hidden treasure”. This followed the International Rice Year in 2004.”</p>
<p>I always pictured the doughnut hole being at a much lower level of income, because I can’t understand how it would be a struggle on $200,000 a year. At its highest, my parents’ combined income was $70-80,000/yr. We did have lower expenses, living in the midwest, but we lived a comfortable, middle class life on that. My parents were also always very good about saving and being frugal: paying cash for the car, doing all the home repair/restoration work themselves, etc. But there was money for things like redoing the kitchen and going on a trip to visit family in Australia. When the time came for college, though, it turned out that we were not eligible for any financial aid, even at that income level.</p>
<p>Yes, putting 3 kids through college, full pay, with no college savings, on an income of $200,000/yr might be a challenge, but it seems to me a bit of planning would make this more than manageable.</p>
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<p>Excellent point. Only a small fraction of colleges promise to meet full need. The rest just do what they can, or want to do. If your income is $20K you are going to be “asked to pay” $25-55K per year at most schools.</p>
<p>Potatoes have more potassium than bananas.
It is an old wives tale, that they are not nutritious.
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<p>There have been some successes with getting kids to start planning for college while they are still in middle school, but then you have to get their parents on board first.</p>
<p><a href=“http://diverseeducation.com/article/61117/”>http://diverseeducation.com/article/61117/</a></p>
<p>Main reason for being able to afford $40k+/year college (rest of COA was merit money) on <$200K Iincome was lack of debt and security of having savings we didn’t have to touch… No mortgage, no car payments made huge difference plus more than a dash of frugality and public schools from K-12 helped to secure our position.</p>
<p>It is quite possible for a family making 200k/yr to live frugally, without vacations or new cars, and still not be able to afford a 60k/yr college. Recent higher earnings, high health care costs (my H and I are both employed and our out of pocket health insurance premiums are 13k, plus a 5k deductible that is always met), child care expenses, divorce, dual earners with both incomes subject to FICA, high cost of living area, parents’ student loan payments, retirement savings (especially if neither parent has any employer funded retirement plan), etc. all impact funds available for college. Also, when both parents work full time there are often convenience costs. No one has time to go to 4 different grocery stores to get the best deal on potatoes. Some posters assume that because they can get certain services cheaply, everyone else can too. In some areas, there is little competition among service providers/retailers, resulting in higher costs. </p>
<p>@busyperson - or paying 50k for a family making 170k? At most schools outside of HYP with good aid, I suspect the full pay threshold begins in the 150-170k range. </p>
<p>Someone has to explain to me the whole “well, we didn’t always have a 200k income so clearly we can’t afford it.” </p>
<p>That has never made sense to me. Let’s say that you lived on a 100k income before you made 200k. Assuming you lived within your means, why would your lifestyle have to change when your income went up? Couldn’t you use that extra income towards school? If you continued to live like you were “only” making 100k, it would be affordable. </p>
<p>I grew up poor so the idea of making 200k is so far beyond my comprehension that I must not understand why it’s hard to afford after an income raise. Someone feel free to set me straight 
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<p>"Most people I know do not say that. They were raising their family and as they made more more money, as the kids got older, they would buy in the best school district, nicest area, convenient to commute for work, best deal they could get. The problem is that houses, as a rule, the bigger they are, the nicer they are, the better neighborhoods they are in tend to cost more. There is a bit of the keeping up with the Jones, "</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, do any of you live in the same home you lived in when your kids were born? I do - moved in when I was expecting, and haven’t upgraded since. </p>
<p>@Pizzagirl, yes, we live in the same home that we lived in when kids were born. We got it at a great price because it was run-down and shabby, and we renovated it (as we had planned to). We doubled the square footage (as my wife says: “we added a house to our house”) and improved the landscaping, but it’s technically the same house.</p>
<p>That said, while there’s been some “lifestyle creep,” we have banked most of our increased income over the years.</p>
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What people are saying is that unless you were making 200K for a while you wouldn’t be able to save a lot of of money for college, and it would be hard to be full pay with 200K income.</p>
<p>We have lived in this house since our kids were 9 and 6. Our mortgage for this house was actually less per month than our first house. </p>
<p>i also live in the same house for the past 11 years and I still make much less than $200k. :(</p>
<p>Where you live can make such a difference. We lived in upstate NY until my oldest was a sophomore. My husband made less than 2/3rd of what he does now, and we banked so much money living there. We moved to a very expensive metro area and our housing cost doubled (for a less nice house albeit it slightly larger . . .chosen for the commute). Our private school cost increased by more than fifty percent. We only take one long weekend for vacation since moving ( but son does do travel sport), and are both driving cars that are seven years old. I don’t have parts of the house furnished at all lol. It is bigger than we need and am hoping to downsize as soon as the kids are in college . .but it’s pretty weird to others. I don’t really care. </p>
<p>I can honestly see the challenges now for people who live in expensive areas who then need to pay for college. We aren’t having an issue, but we had a lot of years where we lived under our means. I don’t like it that we are no longer doing so and hope to revert back to a more affordable lifestyle sooner rather than later. Which definitely means a home with way less maintenance if nothing else!</p>
<p>One of the best decisions we ever made financially was to buy a house that was nice, but wasn’t in one of the more exclusive / gated areas where there would be a lot more pressure to decorate / keep up with the Joneses. </p>
<p>I wish I still lived in my first house. It would’ve been paid off before the oldest child went to college. However, the now ex-H lost his job and couldn’t find employment in our former location. We relocated to an area with higher housing costs. The schools around here are generally abysmal with a few bright spots. The choice is between overpriced housing in a safe area with good schools or private school tuition. We didn’t “move-up” with the 2nd house - it just cost twice as much. I also plan to move now that my youngest went off to college.</p>
<p>Our house is perfectly comfortable. Not too big, not too small. We have friends with significantly bigger/fancier houses and hear horror stories about the maintenance and upkeep. There are a few things I might have preferred in a house, but not willing to spend a small fortune to have it. And now that the kids are gone, I wouldn’t want to rattle around in a huge house. As it is, we have enough maintenance to deal with and I am glad I can be semi-available to deal with it. If we ever move to be closer to the kids (a dangerous thought for many reasons) we would be significantly downsizing and wouldn’t be able to purchase what we would want without spending significantly more (like at least twice what our current house is worth for something a third of the size) as the housing prices there are ridiculous.</p>
<p>I lived in our house for 15 years before we sold it because of relocation. It was a nice house, but we bought it based on our income way back then. I remember I was having few very good years, so I thought it would be a good idea to upgrade. We found a house twice as big as our old house and it was brand new/beautiful. We had the money wired in, as we were about to sign the contract, the seller put in a stipulation that our attorney advised us not to accept. We walked away from the house, the the housing market tanked and my industry also went south (bonus dropped 30+%). We were not affected because we were not leveraged. I still thank my lucky star, someone was definitely looking after me.</p>