Green Minded Wallet

This week is (or I guess was) back to school week for a number of people, though some of us have been back to school for a while now (sigh). Well, I thought I would share a couple of thoughts on going back to school, since I’ve already been back for over two weeks now.

Get a good backpack - The further along you get in school, the heavier the books seem to get. I’m amazed at the size of the textbooks that my neighbors who are in junior high/middle school bring home. The thing about backpacks is that you will carry them around for a long time. Even in college most of the students still carry backpacks, and if you decide to go on for an advanced degree, you’ll still need them. There are even some professors on college campuses who carry them. Many backpacks now also come with a built-in laptop compartment. However, I would personally would not want to carry a bag from a big computer company or a computer bag company (example, Dell, Targus) because it advertises that you’re carrying a computer. However, you can get a pack from anywhere. Many people, myself included, carry daypacks (outdoorsy type bags: The North Face, EMS, etc) which are nice because they have lots of great pockets and compartments. Additionally they are also meant to withstand a lot of abuse.

Shop around for textbooks - Fortunately I only needed one textbook this semester, but even so there was a great distribution in prices. I could have gotten the book new from Amazon for only $59, after using a $5 promotional code and free shipping. However, I went shopping around town and found a used copy with no markings for $52. Now the prices in town ranged quite a bit (from $52 to $74 dollars). None of the other online resellers were cheaper than Amazon.com after shipping. If you’re going to go the used route then you need to make sure you look early (generally before classes start), because the best conditioned ones tend to go the fastest. Furthermore reusing textbooks is more environmentally friendly so there’s that added bonus as well.

Wait until after you go to class to buy notebooks and binders - This is really geared towards college students. Over the years, I’ve found that some professors give lots of handouts, while some still use a chalk and blackboard. So instead of spending a lot of money buying supplies that you might not need, wait until after you figure out the specific equipment that you are going to need for that class and then go shopping. I normally just show up for the first day or two of classes with some notebook paper and a pen and then take it from there.

Well those are my some of my thoughts, do you have any others?

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Earlier this week I expressed the opinion that even if you can’t fully pay for college, you can still ‘do right’ by your children. I believe there are many life lessons that you can teach to your children even if you can’t fully support them through college, that can help them be successfully in their adult lives. Here are a few things that can help a child do well even if they can’t make it through college with full financial support.

They can learn how to behave. In most cases it doesn’t take a lot of money to teach a child to behave well. Yes, kids can learn poor behavior in schools, but if it’s discouraged and punished at home instead of ignored, it can really help later on in life. If really doesn’t matter how smart a kid is, or how much money her parents can throw at a university, if she doesn’t behave. What good does it do to save up hundreds of thousands of dollars for schooling, only to have your child expelled from high school from cheating? What chance does your child have of getting into school when they’re serving jail time for drunk driving or assault? If we don’t teach our children to be respectful, responsible adults who can get into college and successfully complete it than how much money we’ve saved for college is irrelevant, since they won’t be able to enjoy the benefits of that education.

They can learn to take responsibilities for their own actions. At a certain point we all need to be responsible for our actions. Sometimes I like to read the little career articles on the Yahoo! homepage. I have actually seen a few that talk about parent’s covering for their adult working children, calling bosses and all. Is that really necessary? Children need to learn that their homework, their finances, etc are their responsibility and that there are consequences to the choices that they make.

They can learn that life is not always fair. While it may seem harsh to a fifteen year-old to learn that his parent’s aren’t going to be able to pay for college while his friend’s parents are, the truth is that just being able to go to college is a way to expand opportunities that that many people in the world who will never get to experience. And even some of those from poor, rural areas who are able to eventually make it to America and other nations for college, often walk days just to get to public transportation. Days. Of walking. Instead of looking at the financial support they won’t have, children can look to the opportunities and emotional support that they will have.

So when is all this taught? See, that’s the kicker. These are lessons that kids will learn as they are growing up; they’ll learn them based on how they are disciplined and praised. But they’ll also learn them for observing their parents and other adults in their lives. The truth is education is so much more than college, it is so much more than school. As parents, neighbors, family friends, etc. the children in our lives are watching us, and they are learning from us: getting an education on social behaviors, financial behaviors, etc. If we litter, we teach our children that they don’t have to respect our environment or our communities. If we call in sick and then go fishing, we teach our kids it’s okay to lie, if there’s something else we’d rather be doing. These are the lessons we teach them every day for eighteen years, and they are not going to be easily erased by four-years of higher education. If children are surrounded by loving, responsible, members of their community, they will learn these lessons, they may not always practice them, but they’ll have been exposed to them. College can certainly open a lot of doors, but in and of itself it’s no guarantee of success. And while money can certainly help kids out quite a bit, it’s not a guarantee for creating productive members of society (just look at young adult celebrities).

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I’ve read a lot of articles at Yahoo! Finance and Bankrate (and similar sites) that stress the importance of parent’s taking care of their financial lives versus worrying about paying for college. Yet it seems to me that when I read blogs or other venues with discussions, there are a number of people who seem to think that parents should do whatever it takes to pay for college. Some feel so strongly on this topic that they feel that you are not taking care of your child if you do not cover the cost of higher education. This post is to address my feelings on the topic of not being able to (fully) cover your child’s higher education. Here are some of my thoughts.

Just because people can’t pay for college doesn’t mean that they don’t truly love and care about the well-being of their children. I would think that I’m just stating the obvious here, but I think in light of some of the discussions that I’ve witnessed I believe it bears repeating. There are many wonderful loving people in our society, who simply can’t afford the cost of college tuition. I shudder to think of a society where we (openly) discourage the janitor married to the grocery store clerk, or the minister married to the bus driver, or the social worker married to the teacher that they shouldn’t have children, because they wouldn’t be able to contribute much to the cost of their child’s higher education. What about those who may have limited means, but welcome other people’s children (by birth) into their homes? Sometimes I hear people going down this train of thought and I think that it’s important to step back and put everything into perspective.

There are people all over the world who are barely surviving. There are places were if children can get some education at all, there have a tremendous advantage. I truly believe that the parents of children in those countries and lower income people in more affluent nations love their children as much as people in more privileged areas and classes do. We all want to do right by our children, our nephews and nieces, grandchildren etc. But to me that means being a good steward of the resources we have available to us, be it money, time, etc. and being honest with our children about our limitations. If we teach our children that love transcends financial resources, then no matter what level of support we can afford to provide, we can have loving healthy relationships with our children.

As a child of a family that wasn’t able to contribute much to my education, I am very thankful to my mother for my upbringing and feel that she did right by me. While my college wasn’t completely paid for by family funds, work studies, grants, and scholarships requiring me to take out loans, I am still deeply indebted to my mother and our family friends for the lessons that they taught me that I could never learn in school, and which will take me farther than the big name school written on my diploma.

If you’re curious as to what those lessons are, check back later this week.

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