Note: TBB is on vacation at the Canadian Rockies in Alberta, Canada. Until his return, this blog site will likely not have any of the usually legendary Buzz posts:-) TBB is taking the opportunity to do his own filler posts. The eclectic journey through the blogosphere may return after vacation is over, stay tuned! This upcoming week will be very light, mega hiking expected to be done!
Weather did not cooperate for hiking, too cold & rainy in the morning so we changed the plan and decided to drive up Hwy 93 Icefields Parkway and visit Columbia Icefield Glacier center. Cool to walk on ice thicker than the height of the Eiffel Tower! After that we visited magnificent Moraine lake. Oh, and we saw another bear again today. That makes it twice in a row, wow!
Some more content wearing my other hat…
What’s the Biggest Mistake People Make When Financing Their Kids’ College Education?
The biggest mistake must be waiting too long to actually start saving toward this goal. The same is true for saving for retirement. It hurts me when I tell prospects that I cannot help them and I wish they had called me 10 or 15 years ago. A colleague had this in his email signature: “The best time to invest was thirty years ago; the second best is now.” I believe he’s right. You can start now.
Other mistakes: Not saving enough, not having a diversified low-cost investment portfolio, and investing in the wrong type of account. At least, though, your children can borrow for education. You cannot borrow for retirement.
What is the best advice for investors worried about rising interest rates?
Position your bond portfolio toward short-term investment bonds. Invest primarily in low-cost bond mutual funds or ETFs. Ignore constant attempts to chase yield. Be patient. Focus on factors you can control. Ignore more attempts to chase yield. Be patient.
If you cannot sleep at night and buying some gold will make you feel and sleep better, go ahead and buy a little—but be aware that it is not recommended and that it likely will not enhance your portfolio in the long term.
*sigh* first
Congrats. Jeff just can’t keep up, he must be so busy with the award booking:-)
Short term Bond Funds, better yet Bond funds for those of us under 70?? I’d rather hear a blog post about the top 42 Credit Cards for Grocery Store purchases. Yikes
First rule of money: Don’t lose money.
Second: Don’t reach for yield
I suggest you go for some MLPs, non traded REITs or just throw everything in a juicy ETF specializing on dividends;-)
My approach on this is definitely not sexy. I am the guy who made “investing should be as exciting as watching paint dry” popular.
FT types are not my target market, they always want “deals” lol.
I am only doing this to have some filler content to keep up my daily posting and rankings:-)
Mega hiking day tomorrow, woohoo!
LOL at the “filler content”. Soon I will be on vacation, so be prepared for lots of bird profiles and birding guidebook recommendations! I’ll be in places that probably won’t even have internet.
I know you the non managed funds kind of guy. ETF and Index Funds. I dont happen to agree with you but to each his own.
Yes, two completely different schools of thought. More and more from the active investment management school give up and join the Boglehead passive investment management school. You never see going in the opposite direction. There is a reason for that;-)
Glad that you got to go to the Columbia Icefields. My pictures from there are gorgeous. Only thing is that from now on, most other glaciers will seem pedestrian. Are you going to Spirit Island on Maligne Lake?
Yes it was quite an experience indeed. Riding those monster snow trucks was very cool too!
Not sure of Maligne Lake. Supposed to drive all the way up 93 tomorrow and spend two days at the Holiday Inn at Hinton (on Pointbreaks promo only 5k IHG Rewards points per night!) and from there explore Jasper. I have no plans for Jasper now…was only supposed to be one night, not two.
Looking for ideas…Oh wait, I do have noted to do “Maligne Canyon Hike” at Jasper.
Glaciers? I thought Al Bore said they’d all be gone by now…
Buying gold is an atrocious idea. And that’s coming from a guy who’s 100% invested in commodities – and retired at 39 thanks to commodities.
Actually, there is a sign showing what the glaciers looked like in 1903 and what they look like now. I should have taken a pic of it but escaped my mind (too much hiking and sun hitting my head!). Al Bore was right after you saw the sign…it IS taking place…but these things take many many years to happen!
For every Paul there are gazillions Grants out there:-)
“What’s the Biggest Mistake People Make When Financing Their Kids’ College Education? ”
Finance them to go to college in the US. US college educations are overrated (unlike professional and research degrees) and hardly internationally competitive. Send the kids abroad. They may even learn a new language and culture. In your case, just send them back to the EU, tuition is almost FREE! -> Focus on your own retirement first.
Huh?
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2012-13/world-ranking
That table does little to address my point. My point refers to undergraduate education in the US. The table you are referring to is highly influenced by the fundraising capabilities of a university and the research (+publications, predominantly generated by graduate students and post docs) generated from universities (what I refer to as professional and research degrees) . Research at many universities in the US are top notch. And this is heavily supported by NIH. And the endowment can be massive. Unfortunately, in most countries, donations to religious foundations and education institutions are not tax deductible. It is predominantly the government’s role to fund research. Moreover, graduate students are often employed abroad. This makes the research cost much greater given that the benefit costs for a graduate student is extremely low in the us.
=> Get your undergraduate education abroad. Get your professional/research degree in the US.
To satisfy my curiosity, which undergraduate schools did you have in mind?
I acknowledge that the Times survey is mainly based on research, and research determines prestige. The prestige of a school, however, plays a large role in signaling candidates’ (graduates’) value to potential employers and graduate schools.
I raise my eyebrow at the idea that students could learn a new language and culture while in college. I wouldn’t necessarily advise a student to begin college-level work in a second language unless they were extremely proficient at the language beforehand. I do know that there are some continental European universities where English is the language of instruction, but none comes to mind for undergraduate work.
The market also does not seem to agree with the idea that US undergraduate education is worth less, as international student enrollment in the US is increasing faster than enrollment in European universities.
Finally, while some UK/EU schools are cheap for residents/subjects/citizens, they do charge international students tuition. In a similar manner, many US universities charge international students “full sticker price” for undergraduate enrollment, and use this funding source to cover the costs of resident students.
You’re predominantly referring to marketing and access to a network, not education. US universities have perfected the marketing aspects of education. Many of these universities give students access to an established work related network that can help you land a job. This does not relate to the quality of education. Sadly, the domestic prestige of many US universities may be related to the success of their sports program.
There is no better way to learn a language than living in the country. Within a summer, you can be pretty much up to speed. It’s been done over and over again. Most educational college books are available in English (it is after all the international language of education). Most importantly, as a young individual you will carry that experience and language with you for the rest of your life. Many employers abroad value the international experience greatly. It can be very difficult to get certain jobs (in particular in academia) if you haven’t been abroad for a few years. On a related note, hundred of thousands of aliens come to the US (predominantly from non-OECD countries) and do quite will in the undergraduate system.
The bologna framework makes sure that EU/EEA citizen’s and permanent residents pay a minimal or no educational fee. Less than a decade ago some countries used to offer free university education to any citizen of the world.
Note that I do not believe that the US undergraduate education is worthless. I believe the universities do not focus sufficiently on the actual undergraduate education. Much of the education is conducted by graduate students rather than professors. Moreover, the tremendous focus on entertainment distracts from the educational values. And finally, it’s more about making money than educating the students. Hopefully the internet will some day help make education more affordable for the general population.
Wow, what an absolutely fascinating comment exchange this has been! Thank you to both. As my son enters junior year in high school discussions about college are getting more frequent. I instructed him to read your comments and maybe he can think about this more. He thinks he can just go to the University of Michigan and stay at home may be the best option but I encourage him to keep looking…
Fyi, I came to the US as an exchange student and spend my senior year in high school with intent to go on to college here. I spent most of my first year with a dictionary always with me! But I must say I learned the language VERY well in about six months. It is amazing how much you learn when you have to survive in a different culture! And yes I paid the darn much higher tuition bills for four years (or my father did). After that I was on my own. Looking back, my year in high school in the US was my toughest and the one that I grew the most. I encourage son to look into being an exchange student but he does not feel too hot about the idea…It’s a work in progress I guess:-)
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree as it’s late.
It’s true that alumni donations and applications correlate with sports prestige; it’s not true that academic prestige correlates positively with athletic success. No one’s going to start believing that U. Alabama is more prestigious than U. Michigan.
I would still argue that a) for a vast majority of 18-year-olds, learning enough in a summer to prepare for college classes is a steep order – college learning is about much more than reading textbooks, or ought to be, b) I’ve not seen evidence that undergraduate education outside the US is superior, c) I work in academia, and only in a narrow band of the disciplines would your career be enhanced by international experience, though obviously it’s not valueless, and d) the teaching-by-graduate-students does happen, but that’s a picture that hides a lot of variation at state colleges where most undergraduates in this country enroll and receive their degree.
But most importantly, planning for a child’s education by anticipating that they’ll just study outside the US doesn’t strike me as a responsible investment plan.
Finally, we’re reading a travel blog, so I can’t disagree with the value of exposure to other cultures. And studying abroad for some portion of one’s undergraduate years (or after) is a good idea. Interested citizens should definitely look here.
I am not familiar with bond stuff so I am going ask Dr. Google on “juicy ETF specializing on dividends” and on “low cost bond mutual funds.” Do you have/recommend some names for me to research? Thanks George.
I should not mention specific names here because, compliance regulation wise, I may get into trouble. I primarily use Vanguard ETF and index products. The key in this stuff is to have a plan, a portfolio consisting of low cost index/ETF funds and, most importantly, a disciplined approach to rebalance at set intervals (rain or shine). You will likely do better sticking to a plan this way rather than wasting too much energy researching to find that one ten bagger:-) Investment media makes a living selling to the masses to make them believe that with amazing research they can be another Warren Buffett or Peter Lynch!
Hey, they must have heard you were out of town – they actually are racing to get the same questions and material out the door to push the Southwest cards!
There will be more cc sales/promos!
wait…what’s this talk of college??? the gravy train of “cash” for credit card sign ups hasn’t ended yet. OOOps sorry…the Shark has been jumped. Gonna be fun to watch this all come crashing down..lol
While you are correct that you can’t borrow to fund your retirement, and that students can get loans for college, I think one of the best pieces of advice re: funding a college education is avoid loans if humanly possible!
We did that for our kids, funding their educations through a mix of savings/investments and the merit scholarships they won by applying to solid private schools just a tad below where they could have attended because the schools offered merit scholarships. I see so many of their peers madly trying to juggle their ever-growing college debt in a difficult economic environment.
When my son was applying in 2004/2005, I was active on an site where parents and kids shared tips and there were raging battles between the “go to the best school you can even if you take a loan” and the “get a solid education at a reasonable cost for you, without loans” camps. Kids cavalierly stated that the $100,000 debt they would accrue attending Top Notch U would be no problem when they got their dream job at Bank That Failed in 2008. I often wonder what ever happened to those kids….
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