Posts about Financial Planning

The current cost of a four-year private college is $45,370, according to the College Board. Even an associate’s degree can be expensive, averaging $11,580. Now for the good news: For those students who attend college in Maine, there are some great financial incentives to cover college education costs. Two of these are the NextGen College Investing Plan and the Opportunity Maine Tax Credit. This blog post covers the highlights of these two plans. For more specific information to see if you or your child qualifies, visit the appropriate website.

Planning for your child’s college education can be an exciting time. Your child is moving on to a new phase in life — one that could dramatically shape their adult future. You are as interested as your child in making the right choice for college. But how do you make sure your child is on-board with college, not only as a potential student, but financially as well?

Part One of this blog series covered the first of 10 Top Tips you can employ to best educate yourself and your child on financially realistic options for a quality college education. Let’s take a look at the next five tips now. In summary, we talked about the wisdom of having family financial review meetings with your child, talking about the total picture of your family’s financial challenges and future goals, reviewing the cost of college with your child, exploring all options for a great college education, and letting your child know what is expected of him/her in paying for their college education. For the full blog post, go here.

Here are the next five tips for great college financial parenting:

You want your child to have the greatest college experience possible and get accepted into the best school he or she qualifies for. Perhaps you’ve already worked with them to identify their top potential collegiate picks or have attended on-campus tours. You’ve heard about the excellent academics, decked-out dorms and excellent food and facilities. Every college wants to make itself look ideal for your son or daughter.

Unfortunately, all those college bells and whistles can come at an astronomical cost. A full-time college education today at a private college can cost over $250K per student. That means a family with three kids could need $750 -1 million in funds to cover a four-year education for their kids.  Yet many parents still look at colleges that aren’t really a feasible financial possibility for their child. The “let’s figure it out later” approach is not a wise way to start college planning.

Tax season is right upon us, and that means you need to know what has changed during the 2016 tax year, and what to anticipate for the 2017 tax year and beyond.

With Donald Trump as the new president in the White House promising major tax changes, the question becomes: What are the changes he has promised, and how would they affect your 2016 filing, if at all?

Over the past 30 years, interest rates have been on a downward trend. The Federal Funds Rate, a key influencer of interest rates in the U.S. economy, hovered around 8.75% in December of 1988. Since that time, it has fallen significantly, with the rate dropping to a range of 0% to 0.25% in the wake of the Great Recession due to the Federal Reserve’s efforts to stimulate spending in a diminished economy.

All of that is about to change.