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Baby Math with Mr. Candy: DC Isn’t the Only Place with a Budget Crunch

Mr. Candy

Baby Math with Mr. Candy: DC Isn’t the Only Place with a Budget Crunch

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Baby Math
With Mr. Candy

Not being the creative one in the family, I could never hope to capture in words the joy and happiness I experienced when I first saw Skylar. The love I feel in my heart is indescribable.  However, as the “economical” one in the family (some less “economical” would say “cheap”), I am unfortunately fully capable of calculating the cost of Skylar.  Even though she’s of course priceless, the pain I feel in my wallet is all too calculable.

Candy will undoubtedly be sharing the joy and happiness in our hearts, so I will share something less precious:  the pain in our bank account.  A pain that is especially acute when thinking about the cost of college when Skylar is due to attend.  As a consultant, I ask that you indulge my love for finance (some less “financially minded” would say my “inner geek”) and allow me to share that pain with you in my native tongue (that would be bullet points and charts).

  • The current annual cost of an Ivy League education with room and board (OK, so I have high hopes for the little one) is $48,147.1
  • Over the last 10 years, the average annual increase for college has been 6.0% per year. 2 Using that rate, by the time Skylar goes to college in 2027, four years of school will cost $601,194.15.  Yup, that is right.  $601,194.15!  In case you are wondering (or hoping), that is US dollars, not Mexican pesos.

  • Vanguard’s S&P 500 Index fund has returned an average of 10.19% per year since its inception in 1976.3
  • At that rate, we would have to put away an extra $756.41 per month, every month starting today to afford to put little Skylar through college.
  • To find that kind of dough, our budget is going to have to change… DRAMATICALLY!

Budget

Ed. note:  This budget reallocation has NOT been approved by Candy.  To hell with electricity and water, I say — Mama needs a new pair of shoes and margarita fix!

1 http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/collegecost/collegecost.jsp?college_id=9334

2 http://www.naicu.edu/news_room/private-college-tuition-rises-at-lowest-rate-in-37-years

3 https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/vanguard/all?sort=name&sortorder=asc

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Candy Kirby is the founder of The Laughing Stork and a professional fun-maker who will never stop chasing her lifelong dream: to find the Pomeranian or porn star after whom her parents must have named her. A humor columnist for Disney, Nickelodeon, Scary Mommy, Reductress and Redbook, she also used to be a staff writer for the soap opera, The Bold and the Beautiful, where she penned many scripts featuring prolonged heated stares and countless “Who’s the Daddy?” story lines. Candy lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two young kids and three rescue Persian cats, the latter of whom are the real brains behind this operation (so send all complaints to them).

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