Financial Makeover: Making Over Randall
— -- Randall wants to jump-start the planning process to become financially secure. His goals are to provide for his children’s education, as well as his and Debra’s retirement. He needs direction on where to start.
Congratulations Randall! There are not many 33-year-olds as focused as you are on getting your financial act together. At your age, jump-starting the financial planning process will make achieving your goals very realistic.
Goal One: College Savings
Let’s start with your goal to provide for your children’s college education. Your children are ages 5 and 3. This means you have a time horizon of 13 years for the 5-year-old and 15 years for the 3-year-old.
You’ll have both children in college at the same time for two years, so it is very important to start saving to fund these goals immediately. Today, a four-year private school’s tuition, room and board averages $25,000 per year. Therefore, if both of your scholars were in college today, you would require about $200,000 to provide each child with a four-year college education.
Using a 6 percent inflation factor for college tuition, room and board (that’s the actual cost of inflation for higher education the past 10 years), an 8 percent return on your college savings investment account, we have estimated that to provide for your children’s college education, you will need to save about $1,100 monthly for the next 19 years.
Why 19 years? The 3-year-old will start college in 15 years but will be in college for four years. So you continue to save $1,100 per month while the younger child attends college. Don’t forget, by the way, that tuition at state schools is less expensive than private schools, and that scholarships are a possibility.
If you can’t save $1,100 per month, save something. The point is to save regularly and be disciplined about your saving.
Goal Two: Retirement Savings
Your second goal is to provide for your retirement. Your wife has what you call a deferred compensation plan. This type of plan is sometimes referred to as a 457 deferred compensation plan provided to municipal workers.
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