- quote -

I live in northeast Missouri. A rural area with low
paying economic base in my opinion. But its home.

- quote -

Agree 100 percent!

That why Im thinking this over very carefully.... and
asking advice from you all and others.

me[at]privacy.net wrote:

- quote -

There is nothing wrong with renting. From a pure financial point of view,
renting is often cheaper than owning an equivalent place, even factoring in
appreciation and tax savings. Of course, this depends on where you live.

- quote -

Depends on why you want to go back to college. If you expect a college degree
will give you a significant increase in income, it's better to get that income
improvement as soon as possible. But be sure there will be well paying jobs out
there for whatever degree you have in mind.

An associate's degree in a field like auto mechanics may be more cost effective
-- less initial investment, good income, excellent demand. Of course, you
shouldn't pick a career just because of income. If you don't love the work,
you'll hate to get out of bed in the morning -- every morning for the next
twenty years.

-- Doug

- quote -

Good advice!

Thanks so much for your reply and help!

noreplysoccer[at]hotmail.com <noreplysoccer[at]hotmail.com> wrote:

- quote -

I prefaced this points by the statement "How this relates to other
pragmatic advice:" and my style of writing for each point was to state
the other advice, and then state my view on it. Thus the first
sentence is advice other people have given.

--Ram

I'd advise going through the same plan (skipping step 0 of
course). Figure out what you are passionate about and focus on it. If
your priority passion is, say, genetic engineering, then go to
college. If your priority passion is landscaping, then college isn't
so important I'd argue.

That's not a flippant answer, for the record. I think people who
start late, for whatever reasons, need help. And I think it's in our
best interests to help others in this regard also (our family,
friends, random strangers, etc.)

--Ram

me[at]privacy.net wrote:

- quote -

"Save for kids' higher education. My view about this is that kids
should either earn merit scholarships to go to good schools, learn
to pay for it themselves using the above strategy (usually not a
good idea for undergraduate education but they could take debt),
or go to a cheap state or community college. In rare cases, it
might be worth it if an undergraduate institution is special, but I
strongly feel someone 16-18 years old should be able to handle the
responsibility of their higher education (worth teaching them this
at an young age)."

you suggest saving for kis education and the next sentence is "pay for
it themselves". Please clarify.

- quote -

Excellent post!

But question..... what would you do if you've started
late say at 46?

And what if you only had a highs school education and
didn't own a home but still rented?

And say you have abt 50k in "resources"?

Would you take those resources and build a SMALL home
that is completely paid off.... then concentrate on
going back to college?

Or vise versa?

Since people have been listing preferred "financial" plans in other
threads, I thought I'd start a new thread and outline mine (which is
somewhat more abstract):

0. Start young. The younger you start, the better it is. Preferably
the moment you start talking, reading, and writing. If it's too
late for you to do this, then make sure any children you can
influence get this advice.

1. Understand yourself. Figure out what your passions are in life,
what really motivates you, what you're good, and what you'd enjoy
doing the rest of your life as long as physically possible. In
other words, these are things you'd want to be doing regardless of
whether someone was paying you money to do it. This isn't
necessarily easy, and you may never really reach a firm conclusion,
but it is the process that counts.

2. Among those things that your passions, prioritise them in the order
of what society values the most and make it your "profession"
(which it really isn't since you'd be doing it anyway). If you're
good at it (as you should be), your "income" will be commensurate
with society's pereived value of your efforts. Don't forget your
other passions and continue to focus on them also.

3. Based on your current and projected future "income", live within
your means and don't care about what society thinks about how you
should live. No matter if this "income" is high or low, the main
thing that matters is that you're doing what you really enjoy doing
and love to do. Everything else is just a way to enable you to
focus on your passions more. Don't be a prisoner to materialism.

4. Plan for the future unexpected events that could throw you off off
your passions. Two ways to do this is by investing in all kinds of
insurance and dedicating a portion of your "income" for the future
in case such events occur. The goal here should be to do enough to
replace your "income" for a time when you cannot or do not wish to
focus on your "professional" passion for whatever reasons. I view
insurance as collectivisation of risk (i.e., a portion of your
"income" goes towards paying people who have an unexpected event,
in return for the promise that people will do the same for you).
This includes health, disability, property, and life insurance (to
help take care of people who depend on you).

5. Realise that luck plays an enormous role in the opportunities that
come across you. Enjoy life with that realisation that you're lucky
since things could always be worse off. Iterate the above process
often. Live to live.

How this relates to other pragmatic advice:

1. Pay off high-interest and other debt. Since you're leaving within
your means, this means either you don't have debt or your "income"
can handle debt payments reasonably with the expectation that
eventually it will get paid off.

2. Save for "retirement". The concept of "retirement" doesn't really
apply if you can make above approach work for you. Since you've
planned for unexpected events via insurance and future allocations,
you should be okay.

3. Save for kids' higher education. My view about this is that kids
should either earn merit scholarships to go to good schools, learn
to pay for it themselves using the above strategy (usually not a
good idea for undergraduate education but they could take debt),
or go to a cheap state or community college. In rare cases, it
might be worth it if an undergraduate institution is special, but I
strongly feel someone 16-18 years old should be able to handle the
responsibility of their higher education (worth teaching them this
at an young age).

--Ram