How to Organize Education Expenses

Video Transcript

"I am going to present a topic on budgeting. Again with the help of Expert Village, hopefully we can help people and assist people in terms of developing a budget. In this clip we are going to talk about another budget item that can have a big impact and this is going to be education/ child care. I always relate things to my situation. I've got three kids. This has a big impact. I will talk about child care first then we'll go back to the education. In my case day care was a big impact. With three kids spaced about three, four years apart, day care expenses can have a huge impact on your budget and day care, at least in the area where I'm in, is very, very expensive. We pay day care on a monthly basis for my three kids. So again, look at those expenses for childcare, if it impacts you, and determine what that is on a monthly basis. In my case we are paying basically $100 a week so it is $400 a month. That had a huge impact on my budget that I needed to account for. And as far as the education that can be school loans, it could be parochial school that you are paying for, it could be for classes that you need for your job or it could be that you are pursuing higher education. So there could be expense with that. The biggest expense normally, at least in my case, was school loans. It seemed like Sally Mae was the next door neighbor for a long time. So school loans can have a big impact on the budget especially if you are paying for higher education and so forth. In my budget I think it was like $150 a month forever. But that needs to be also in your budget if you have school loans, tuition, day care or childcare, look at those expenses and accommodate them in your budget because a lot of times I look with clients and review it and I notice that they may have young children. I ask what they do with childcare and they may have a neighbor watch the kid and pay a little bit. You need to include that in the budget. The budget reflects all the money that you spend and all the expenses that you spend. So look at your expenses related to education and childcare and put them in the budget. Also include things that you may be doing; swim lessons, golf lessons, soccer lessons for the kids. All those things need to be reflected in the budget."