<p>This is borderline rhetorical…but i have to say something to somebody and I can’t talk to my kids about it. LOL. Both of our kids have been in public school from the beginning…a mixture of reasons – we were attracted to the school district which is trying to make a big comeback in our large urban city…and we wanted to save money…and not get hooked into the $12,000 to $18,000 per year tuitions around here. At $15,000 a kid, that would be $360,000 spent by the end of senior year. On the positive side, our children have LOVED their public school life…my husband and me were private school kids and we’ve loved being part of the public school system as well…it’s been cool.</p>
<p>So we didn’t spend $360,000 by going this route…and how much of it did we save? $32,000 per kid. Truly, that is pathetic. No more great insights than that…</p>
<p>So we didn’t spend $360,000 by going this route.</p>
<p>I don’t know if you can look at it that way. Maybe you couldn’t have afforded private schools that cost that much???</p>
<p>If you easily could, then only you know where the money went instead. You’re talking about $300k in “missing money”. If it didn’t go for luxury stuff, then you probably couldn’t have kept your kids in private schools. </p>
<p>No, mom, you’re right…it wasn’t like we had $300k sitting around…that was a big decision to go public…but still, we had <em>imagined</em> that we would bank, say, half of that over 12 years…instead…it’s all gone with the wind… with no luxury to show for it…</p>
<p>but still, we had <em>imagined</em> that we would bank, say, half of that over 12 years…instead…it’s all gone with the wind…with no luxury to show for it</p>
<p>Then don’t feel bad. The money wasn’t really ever available to be saved.</p>
<p>you’re talking about over $10k per year disappearing. IF it wasn’t wasted, then it wasn’t available to be saved.</p>
<p>Our kids went to private K-12, but not pricey schools. lol</p>
<p>Few people can manage to do that. We paid the private school for all of those years, and the idea was that it would be less painful paying for college as we already had that amount earmarked for school. Well, it was/is painful paying tuition k-12 and it’s even more painful coughing up the remainder for college. I am ashamed to feel that way, but, that is how I do feel. We have so much, but we would/could have more if… We always want more. </p>
<p>I don’t think we would have had much more if my kids had gone to public school either. It would have gone somewhere.</p>
<p>My kids have always been in private, some very expensive, some less so. In our case, we have to pay for it, so we do without a lot of things (like nice haircuts, color, clothes, vacations, cars) that others do not consider as “extra”. When you do not “have” to come up with that money each month it is easy to spend at least some of it on other things. If I wasn’t paying private tuition, I would not be saving all that money believe me.</p>
<p>This is so true. When I think about my childhood, we had so much less than I have now. We were not poor, and we were not lacking anything we needed. H and I earned more than our parents did, and our kids had more than we had … everything they needed, and much of what they wanted. We are not rich by any stretch, but we are well aware that we are better off than most. Had we lived in the manner our parents lived, we would have so much more money saved than we do. </p>
<p>Then I look at my good friend whose H makes probably in excess of a million a year. When our oldest kids were looking at colleges, she commented how unfair it was that her kids (15 months apart) didn’t qualify for financial aid. Funny how we all see people with more than we have, and it colors how we feel about our own situation.</p>
<p>I don’t know if it’s “The American Way,” if we are a spoiled generation, or if it’s simply human nature.</p>
<p>On the positive side, it does sound as though you will be able to come up with it when you need to pay off the loans, so it sort of works out in the long run right? Paying the $360,000 then or coming up with it as you go along will get you to the same place eventually!</p>
with no luxury to show for it…</p>