Our Children Have to Go To School

Those who follow Financial Clinic at 87.6 Hard Rock FM should know by now that Education Fund is the scariest possible thing that is happening to our generation.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. It’s soaring at 20% inflation rate per year!

This is, if we’re talking about putting our kids in private schools. Some of my clients complaints that we should lower down our standards. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. If we budget for our kids to go to top public schools, it’s not about our kids being smart or not, but it’s about the seats available! Therefore, we just have to start the fund with numbers quoted from private schools.

Just to toy with your mind a little bit, below are list of schools with their fee for Uang Pangkal (data gathered for 2007) :

I know, you’re going to say “Oh My God!”

We had the same feeling of hopelessness. When we had our first born, I was sobbing because we didn’t have the money to put him to pre school. Our bank balance in 2001 was Rp 119,200! Thanks to those “fun” trip overseas and “very smart” way of spending money.

Alhamdulillah ada rejekinya… jadi semua ketakutan itu terjawab sudah. Kapok deh gak mau lagi sebodoh itu dengan uang.

So yes, the story is very different after we sat down together and set up a proper financial plan. Today, we know exactly how much our kids education is gonna cost us in the future and how much we have to invest to achieve it. We haven’t covered the whole amount yet, we are still far from achieving all our financial goals. But we have the plan to hold on to. When we have additional income these days, we don’t just spend it. We look into our plan and decide which one we want to top up.

The question is …. Have you done the same thing?

Hurry up because the longer you wait the more you have to put aside for your monthly investment.

Finance Should Be Practical!

Ligwina Hananto

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