University Costs

Lifestyles with Boomerang Children

by bigcajunman on April 15, 2013

The concept of the boomerang child can be viewed in two ways:

Kids that move out initially, however, due to any of 100 reasons they move back in with you.
While kids are at University they go away for 8 months (you get used to a certain lifestyle) and then they return and muck it all up.

In the first case, the kids move back in and you create a different lifestyle while they live with you (my suggestion would be to make sure that they give to the home, don’t just let them live with you “gratis” (unless you want them to never move out)).

Lew Zealand famous for His Boomerang Fish (not his Boomerang Kids).

The second instance is an issue we have run into the past few years. Here are a few of the interesting issues that arise when kids “come home” from being away at school:

They stay “at home” for the summer, however, they don’t manage to sublet their apartments at school, so you end up paying rent on an empty place. This one makes you wonder if the high price you pay for residence might not be bad, given you only pay fees while your kids are living there. My kids have been good at helping pay for this as well (or getting subletters).
Blossoming food costs, thanks to more mouths to feed around the house. Kids come home and wonder why there is no food around the house? Here is a hint, you are eating it all!!!
Vehicles suddenly disappear, or there is an assumption that cars are available all the time. You know which car you can have access to when you want? Your own damn car (so go out and buy one, or stop grousing about cars not being available).

The main issue however that my wife and I have found is the cost of utilities suddenly exploding. Our electric bill goes up a little, our water bill goes up a fair amount (when did a normal shower last 45 minutes long?), but the Internet costs are what really drive me insane.

It seems young folk believe that Internet is free, and unfortunately with my current service provider, their overage fees are astronomical. Both my kids seem to have access to other folks’ NetFlix accounts and download a great deal of stuff, and two years ago I actually had $120 of overage fees from Rogers one month. I did call Rogers and got that lowered, and also got a cheaper rate (after complaining about the overage charge), but even when my kids visit for a week, that month we almost overrun our Internet Cap.

The easiest solutions from what I can tell are:

Change the locks and don’t let anyone move back into my house, but that does seem a little bit harsh
Make my kids pay for the overages (which will be happening this summer, if they occur)
Find a better service provider that does not gouge their customers like TekSavvy or use Bell Fibe and pay the extra $10 which is allegedly unlimited.

Anybody else have this issue?

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Where the Hell is that Receipt?

by bigcajunman on December 12, 2012

So the joy of the Christmas season is always augmented by the need to clean up (or wrap up) your finances by the end of year, and maybe start preparing for the upcoming RRSP and Tax Season (it’s just synonymous Holidays and End of Year (said he dripping with acidic sarcasm)).

Not only can I not find the latest “Tickle me Furby” toy, I can’t find the damn medical receipts from my many physiotherapies for my knee and also all of my god damn bus passes to claim my mass transit credit. The aggravation of the Christmas season grows exponentially when you add in your end of year stuff too. Many a day I end up swearing like a drunken member of the Merchant Marine on his first furlough in a year in Shanghai thanks to Christmas Shopping and End of Year financial close out, but there is more to add.

January is coming? What does January mean for anyone with kids in University? If the school your kids attend has a semestered set up, you owe another $3500 in Tuition Fees too! Let that lump of coal under your tree simmer there for a while, just to make you feel more festive. I know at Christmas I always have a spare $3500 hanging around in my sock drawer (hell these days, I am lucky if I have socks in my sock drawer) (yes I have RESPs to cover some of this, but never interrupt a lunatic mid-rant).

Nothing like a Bloggers Rant to allow me to use the old A-Bomb Picture

How to alleviate this? You really need me to explain this? OK, back to the tried and true advice you have had from me many times, but one more time from the top:

Don’t make financial planning and tax planning an end of year thing, do it every month or at worst every quarter, get it all straight that way December 31st is not a black day on your calendar
Stay organized too, and no a shoebox full of receipts is not organised, that is a paper shite vortex looking for somewhere to hit. File the stuff in a way that it is easy for you to find and figure out where everything is.
Christmas planning? If you didn’t start that in September you are going to feel like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs come December. Make a plan and stick to it.

As for me? Yeh, I don’t follow my own advice, do I? Hopefully you do!

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Will You Be Able to Pay for Your Kids Education?

by bigcajunman on November 13, 2012

Yes, I have talked about this a lot over the past 8 years, but I did find an excellent article in the Globe and Mail’s Canadian University Report entitled:

Will You Have Enough to pay for your education? by Erin Millar

This bursts a lot of the bubbles about the every increasing costs with Post Secondary education. Lots of great points about the ever-increasing tuition costs and how they may increase in the future, but lots of other really important points about:

Are we That Dumb to Assume University Education Costs are going to be Easy?

Additional fees that are almost as bad as the airline industry for added leaching fees
Costs of residence and living away from home
Costs of Books and such too

If you didn’t see the hard copy in the Globe and Mail, read it on-line if you are hoping to go to University or you hope to send your kids to University.

Remember some of my finest rants about this as well:

If you want more of my rants, run a search on my site (it’s in the right column) for University Costs.

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Tuition Costs Up? Really, I didn’t notice!

by bigcajunman on September 17, 2012

So Stats Canada confirmed something that any parent who has a child in University (in Canada) already knew, that is that Tuition Fees are outstripping the Inflation rate in terms of rate increases. Overall across Canada the average increase is 5.0% however, those lucky enough to be in Ontario (like me) saw a 5.4% rate increase (remember we are only talking tuition here, not residence fees or all those incidental fees).

Remember that inflation has been running between 1.5% and 2.5% over the past year, so this is at best only a 100% overrun of inflation. Wonder what caused this? I have heard Universities say, it is due to lower Government grants and such, haven’t really seen a good explanation.

So your daughter wants to be a doctor? Wondering how much that might cost (I include a table of all programs lower down in this post):

Undergraduate students in dentistry ($16,910) paid the highest average undergraduate fees in 2012/2013, as was the case for the previous years. They were followed by students in medicine ($11,891) and pharmacy ($10,297).

No wonder Dentists are so stressed. As for Doctors, well at least when they graduate they can pay things off faster with all the bonuses communities are offering for them to move to their area.

You already have a degree, but are thinking that maybe an MBA will help you get ahead?

At the graduate level, the most expensive programs remained the executive master of business administration (MBA) with tuition fees of $38,508, and the regular MBA program, at $23,757.

Hope you are saving your pennies for that, or get someone else to pay for it!

I did mention those nagging extra fees as well, here is what you can expect in that area:

Nationally, additional compulsory fees for Canadian undergraduate students increased 3.3% in 2012/2013 compared with the previous year. On average, these students paid $750 in additional compulsory fees, up from $726 a year earlier.

Remember, those fees are not deductible either, and that does not include the price of text books or living expenses.

Don’t let it be said I haven’t warned you younger parents putting money into RESPs thinking you are saving for your kids education, let me tell you right now, it is not going to be enough. You had best use your TFSA as well, and any other way to save, because your RESP might get you through year 1 and 2, but you will be hard pressed to make it to the end of your kids post secondary education.

Tuition Gouge Increase by Province

Average undergraduate tuition fees for Canadian full-time students, by province

	2011/2012	2012/2013	2011/2012 to 2012/2013
	current dollars		% change
Canada	5,313	5,581	5.0
Newfoundland and Labrador	2,649	2,649	0.0
Prince Edward Island	5,258	5,470	4.0
Nova Scotia	5,722	5,934	3.7
New Brunswick	5,728	5,917	3.3
Quebec	2,520	2,774	10.1
Ontario	6,815	7,180	5.4
Manitoba	3,638	3,729	2.5
Saskatchewan	5,734	6,017	4.9
Alberta	5,663	5,883	3.9
British Columbia	4,919	5,015	2.0

Tuition Gouge by Area of Study

Average undergraduate tuition fees for Canadian full-time students, by field of study

	2011/2012	2012/2013	2011/2012 to 2012/2013
	current dollars		% change
Agriculture, natural resources and conservation	4,961	5,095	2.7
Architecture and related technologies	4,788	5,077	6.0
Humanities	4,769	4,942	3.6
Business, management and public administration	5,673	6,060	6.8
Education	3,804	4,006	5.3
Engineering	6,155	6,552	6.5
Law, legal professions and studies	9,335	9,949	6.6
Medicine	11,313	11,891	5.1
Visual and performing arts, and communications technologies	4,591	4,793	4.4
Physical and life sciences and technology	5,247	5,478	4.4
Mathematics, computer and information science	5,781	6,111	5.7
Social and behavioral science	4,656	4,862	4.4
Other health, parks, recreation and fitness	4,873	5,092	4.5
Dentistry	16,037	16,910	5.4
Nursing	4,731	4,909	3.8
Pharmacy	9,719	10,297	5.9
Veterinary medicine	5,889	6,224	5.7

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Empty Nest, Really?!?

by bigcajunman on August 29, 2012

Yesterday I dropped off the last of my children at school, and now our nest is empty (sort of, my 7-year-old son is still at home, as are our two cats), so me and Mrs. C8j are now living a relatively empty nest life (or at least a single child family).

What does this mean? Will we become Helicopter (or worse a Blackhawk) parents? We seem to have the time to do this, but given my son is on the Autism spectrum, we will be closely involved with his education, but again, that may not really count. Will we be foot loose and take up new lifestyle ideas ? Nah, not me any how, although I might get a bigger TV (80″ does sound pretty sweet for the football season).

Do we now have much more disposable income? Ay, there’s the rub, I have an empty nest, however money obligations continue to live on don’t they? University education costs continue to dog us, schooling costs in general, repairs on our house must be done, so when do you finally get some “me money time”? I have no bloody idea.

I have had a few younger co-workers say something about how they envy me, being close to retirement and such, however, I usually beg to differ with them, pointing out that throughout my life my disposable (or discretionary) income has shrunk throughout my life. The time I had the most “me money” was when I was in High School and University. As soon as I graduated my “throw around” money started to shrink and it continues to shrink.

Maybe one day I will suddenly realize that I am “foot loose and fancy free” financially, but I honestly cannot see that day any time in the near future (unless it rains money, or I start making a bloody fortune on this blog (OK, that is always funny when I write that)).

Question: When do you think you will be financially comfortable and your money is your own?

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