k-12 Archives — Paying for private school in the DMV area

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Skip the Tip! Take it to go and eat at home.

This took me many years to discover but it has served us well. Despite being on the frugal track we occasionally eat out (ok, more than occasionally). Sometime as a family sit down dinner or for a special occasion but most often because we go out because it would be fun to go out.

To save 15% at a restaurant, skip the tip by taking the food to go. That will save 15% (or 20%) on the bill because there is no tip. And, after a while, you realize you have drinks at home. And bread. And that is another few dollars saved.

Electrical candlelight!

Instead, set your home up to be a delightful place to eat with a fancy and clutter free table that include forks that haven’t been in a million people’s mouths (a no cost bonus!). At the Café De Your Place there is never ever a wait. The table is always open, there are just enough seats and it’s the best table in the joint.

Plein Air!

In the summer we eat out on the ‘rustic’ wood table that came with the house. This year we added a coral maple to enhance the view at our fine dining establishment. How many restaurants do you visit have this kind of greenery? Get creative (but low cost) and set up your own ambiance.

Paying for Private School’s Frizzy Coral Maple Tree of Awesomeness.

If you are like most families where eating out just overtook the grocery sales then you probably spend around $2625 on dining out.

Ha. I know the truth. If you have the income to consider a private school tuition and live in metropolitan area that number is much higher. It is more like $6000 a year. Lets go with $6000. That is $900 a year in tips if frequent wait in line and then sit down establishments. Toss in another $100 on desserts and drinks over the course of a year and we will make it an even $1000.

Show em’ the sink!

I know some of you are secretly cringing because you spent way more than three or even six thousand on dining out last year. This is a judgement free zone. We are here to help. You just have more opportunity to save! Start with an immediate 15% discount on many (and soon to be rapidly declining) restaurant meals. And enjoy the further benefit from having your children rarely hearing the phrase “I will be your server for this evening”. They need the gift of responsibility and can get up and get their own water when they need a refill.

This one slight change in behavior nets you $1000 a year and comes with a free side of humility for the entire family. A $1000 here and there starts to look like a tuition payment and there are lots of easy ways to save big money.

Paying for Private School French Country Kitchen

Paying for Private School French Simulated Country Kitchen- comes with reading materials. How many restaurants do that? Don’t worry, we bought those chairs used.

The Granny Smith cash multiplier method

January 1, 2017 / G. Ruga / 1 Comment

There is a very subtle multiplier effect which is essentially a tax free income booster that can help you pay for a private school tuition. Here is how it works.

In November my wife was looking for a tree to plant on our very (very) small yard as a screen for a nearby street. The tree had to be fairly small given the constraints of said small yard.

She happened upon one that was ascetically pleasing with a maximum height and width of 30 feet by 30 feet. Measured from the location of where we would place it with a yard stick (it’s a small yard) at full size the tree will expand 15 feet each way. Perfect!

Method Tip 1: Avoid having to earn as much income on the purchase by purchasing a lower cost item.

The ten foot tall tree, while ideal in form and habit, was half bereft of leaves with a bit of a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree look going on. The tree was originally $120 but was marked down to $30. A sale!

Enter step one of the multiplier effect. She saved $90 dollars on the original purchase.

US Currency – Source Wiki Commons

That saved amount removed the need to earn that extra $90. Let’s assume a 40% cumulative, federal, state, sales taxes and mystery fees on the income. That extra $90 would have cost $126 in earned income to cover. Whew!

To restate- that is $126 in earnings we didn’t have to make to actually end up with the $90 extra we would have needed for the full price of the tree.

Method Tip 2: When making a purchase, have it solve multiple problems at once.

My mother told me that her grandmother had a purpose for every plant around the farmhouse, in addition to looking nice.

In our case we were looking for a small tree that provides a summer screen from the nearby street but still looks good and drops leaves in the winter for additional sunlight in the colder months. This works for both screening and sound attenuation in the winter as it is quite dense with branches.

What else could it do for us?

In our case the tree selected is a Granny Smith apple tree! It should produce about $20 bucks of

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organic apples every year (ok, more like $50 but I want to be conservative here to make a point).

And we placed it on the west side of the house to shade (and cool the air) going into the AC and near the house.

What about having to pick the extra apples that we won’t eat, giving bags of them to neighbors, family, coworkers and the local food pantry and then still having to pick busted ones off the ground? What a hassle right? Sure, but we have arranged our lives such that we get regular physical activity with this sort of money saving effort all year long. Annual gym memberships were cancelled long ago but we will only count the month of apple picking and leaf raking mayhem here for another $50 saved.

And for the grand finale, our nearby park has crab apple trees. These can be used to cross pollinate Granny Smith apple trees (they self-pollinate but word in the fields is that a nearby pollinator will help with yields). That is a second $30 tree we didn’t have to buy (nor had space for) because we selected a compatible tree for our neighborhood.

Total economic impact

The first year we saved $90 on the tree and $30 on a second tree we didn’t need to purchase. The tree (fairly big already) should produce apples about three years hence and provide the shade to assist with house cooling.

Lets look at the numbers using the Granny Smith multiplier method.

Year 1: $120 saved

Year 3 on: $50 saved on gym membership, $20 on apple costs and $5 on AC costs for an annual savings of $75.

Ten year economic output: $645

And remember this is all tax free after the initial $30 we spent. That is a money tree that offers $60+ annually in savings, builds community as we gift organic apples, screens the street and provides a beautiful tree to look at. Plus it is pretty cool to have an apple tree.

Let’s assume my conservative numbers are *still* too high and it only saves us half that, or $30 a month.

Fine. An investment with a yield will take a hit of 15% on the income so I would need $34.5 in monthly income ($414 annually) to produce that same value.

A typical safe stocks yield 3%. We would need a stock portfolio with a market value of $13,800 to produce that same income. And to purchase that stock we would have had to earn $20,010 in gross income to purchase that investment.

Oh, and the yield on the Granny Smith Apple Tree is $30 a year or 100% of its original purchase price, annually.

We just trounced the stock market and avoided having to earn an additional $20,000. Thanks Granny Smith!

Don’t overdo it

The multi-purpose mindset does have its limits. Spending an extra $10,000 on a fancy pick-em-up-truck because you might need to haul a jumbo pack of toilet paper someday is just a slow way to lose money. Just think about it first and run the numbers is all I am saying.

Get into the multi-purpose mindset. You can do this.

The saving power of down blankets

November 17, 2016 / G. Ruga / 1 Comment

Little costs add up. Avoid them and you can redirect those funds toward tuition payments.

For example, a few years ago during a conversation someone mentioned they had a down blanket and thus kept their heat a bit lower in the winter.

Inspired, we researched, explored and then purchased three down blankets. This has a notable upfront costs. Synthetic down is lower cost and, importantly for kids, won’t make your nose itchy or cause an asthma attack.

This fluffy stuff – available in blankets and jackets is a magical no-power-required space heater that follows you around.

We lowered our heat from 72 degrees at night to 62 degrees with no loss in comfort. Saving 3% on our bill for every degree we lower our heat means we dropped our bill by about thirty percent. And this applies for every month of the winter. Every year. On a $200 heating bill (it’s cold where we live) that is $60 bucks each month that can be sent to the school to pay for tuition. Just with a few blankets. Passive power.

That might not seem like a lot. Learn to respect small amounts of money. When we were first scrambling to find ways to cut expenses we did research to cover the cost of private school we made a list and started going through the items one at a time for months. $60 a month isn’t a lot of money. But twenty $60 items is $1200 a month. You can do this.

Paying for private school in the DMV area

Tips and tricks for sending your child to private school for Washingtonians