Dear High School Senior:
If you do not leave home after high school, you can save a lot of money. So can your parents.
Parents worry about boomerang kids. The parents send them off to college for $100,000 (after-tax money), and then the kids come back home to live after graduation. They can't find jobs. This is bad psychologically for the kids and the parents.
Here is how you and your parents can avoid this: don't leave home after high school. Don't ask them to toss you as a $100,000 boomerang.
You can quiz out of the first two years of college by using CLEP exams and DSST exams. This will cost about $2,000. Buy textbooks used or get them through inter-library loan for free. You can easily pass one six-credit CLEP every six weeks. If you start on the day after you graduate, by the time you would normally be returning to college as a sophomore, you will be a junior.
If there is any course you just cannot pass by home study, enroll at a local community college and take it. Night school is preferable. This will leave your days free.
Then the final 60 semester credits can be earned online, really cheap: under $10,000. Here is a university that allows this: the University of Southern New Hampshire. Get information here:
Pay for your education. A part-time job lets you do this.
OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND
Here is how to remain unobtrusive.
First, get a part-time job as soon as you graduate -- no summer vacation. You need at least four hours a day. Five would be better. In your first year, CLEP and DSST exams will be cheap. Save as much as you can for the final two or three years of college.
The best job is to work as an apprentice to a successful local businessman who started the business. Keep your eyes open. See how things are run. Get paid to learn a business.
This gets you out of the house. Your parents will not have you underfoot.
Second, spend a lot of time studying in the local library. There are computers available. If not, buy a cheap Chromebook. The library has Wi-Fi. Also possible: use the library of the local community college.
This gets you out of the house. Your parents will not have you underfoot.
TOKEN PAYMENTS
First, pack a lunch. Brown bag it. Pay for this food. It's cheap this way. Your nutrition will be better.
Second, pay $100 a month for your room. This is a token payment. Tokens are important. They represent ethical positions. There's no such thing as a free room. Clean it daily. Make your bed. Make it look as though no one is living in it. It is only for sleeping and late-night studying.
Third, do your washing early in the morning on the weekend, while your parents are having coffee. Pay for your own soap. Then leave for the library when you are done.
They are not telling you what do do. You are not anywhere around to be told what to do. Out of sight, out of mind.
Fourth, pay for your own car costs, including your share of the insurance. It's cheaper to be on your parents' policy.
Fifth, if you can afford it, pay $100 a month for your share of the family's health insurance.
Sixth, pay for your share of the phone bill.
This strategy relieves your parents of most expenses. They can see that you are mentally independent. But you are taking advantage of lower marginal costs: room, insurance, and phone. This is wise. Never pay retail when you can pay wholesale. These token payments get them out of micromanaging mode.
They are avoiding your college expenses. This is well worth having you at home from the time the library closes to the time you leave for your job the next morning.
They feed you dinner. You pay for breakfast. Eggs and oatmeal are cheap. You pay for your lunch. Enjoy a free dinner. This tells them you are still a member of the family.
Never be a freeloader. Be a wholesale renter. This buys you independence. Independence is worth paying for.
GRADUATION
Leave home at graduation. There is no social stigma for living at home if you are in college. But after graduation, it's time to move out of the nest. To do this, you had better be debt-free.
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