I had to laugh the other day, though, when a post requested a referral to a financial planner who “could explain all the options for paying for college that people use.”  This person wanted unbiased advice and essentially the a la carte menu of possibilities. That would be a little like me walking into the paint store and saying, “I just want to see all the colors people use to paint their walls.”  Have you ever seen how many colors there are, how many different shades of the same color, and how many brands of paints?  That’s before you get to oil or acrylic.  Don’t get me started on brushes. And have you ever taken a sample of favorite paint home from the store, put it on the wall and hated it?  This original poster would have been better off with a survey.

Your advisor should advise YOU.

Here are the many ways I’ve seen college get funded:

• Kid decides not to go to college or not to go right away.
• Kid decides to live at home and attend two-year college.
• 529 plans.
• Paying out of income as the child goes to college.  In other words, not using savings at all.  (Heck, in one instance, the family’s annual tuition expense went down when the kid left a private high school and went to a state university and the family bought a new car.)
• Brokerage and investment accounts.
• Grandparents or other family members paid for it.
• Scholarships.
• Work-study programs.
• Loans.  (Remember, you can borrow for education but not retirement)
• Life insurance cash values.
• Investment properties (either selling them or using rental income).
• Inheritances and inheritance advances.

I could go on.  My point is that there is no right way to do this, you need someone who can listen to you, understand your values and know who you are, and help you navigate among the many options with a presentation of the beauties and pitfalls of each. That’s what good advisors do:  they listen well, they have opinions, they articulate them, and help their clients come to their own decisions about their financial lives.  This is why good advice is worth it.  It saves you time, money, anguish and agony.  A strategy for college funding is not always easy to just paint over.  Make sure you get as good of a look as you can at the start.

How to make the most of family bonding time

When I’m working with clients, I will often ask questions like these:

• Do you think you will inherit money from your parents or extended family?

• Do you believe you will have to support your parents or other family members financially now or in the future?

• Do you think your parents would be willing to contribute toward college education?

• How is the health of your parents? Are they taking any medications?

I would guess that somewhere around 80% of the time, I get blank stares or guesses as a response to these questions.  What that tells me is that aging parents are not sharing with their adult children the status of their financial lives.  This probably started generations ago and was passed down when the adult children were young and parents didn’t want to share financial information with young children who might share that information with friends and neighbors.  The habit stuck.  Now the information is not shared for any number of reasons—privacy, embarrassment, unequal inheritance allocations, etc.

This is bad news for everyone.  It’s bad news for aging parents who need to assign the task of Power of Attorney to someone, who want to maintain family harmony, who may need financial or other support in the future as they age.  And it’s bad news for adult children raising their own children, probably instituting the generations-old habit into the next generation, and are clueless about what their parents might need or what they might be able to anticipate inheriting in the future (or not!)

Take time during your family vacations to talk, bond and laugh.  You do not need to talk finances.  But you do need to start building the relationship and trust with your family members so that when there is an opening to talk about serious financial issues, the bridge is there to make that conversation happen easily, timely, and when everyone has their faculties.  The last thing you want to do is have this conversation when someone is medically, physically, or psychologically impaired by illness or old age.

Get the conversation going.  Start with the weather.