Halving Your College Costs

This is a very hard post for me to write.

Today I got some news that put the nail in the coffin of my oldest son's plans to attend a university in the United States. For those of you who don't know my situation, we immigrated to Canada from the US about six years ago to be near my husband's family and to be able to pursue our dreams of self-employment.

My oldest son chose to apply to US universities because he's interested in Meteorology and we couldn't find any schools offering undergraduate degrees in Meteorology in British Columbia, where we live. He also wanted to return to the US.

I felt that we could pull it off. He had a homeschooling background but was attending his senior year of high school at a public school. I figured he'd interest US universities because of where we live AND the homeschooling background. His grades are terrific, his SAT score was very high. He sent in his applications and we waited for the results.

The results are in.

He got accepted everywhere. He got scholarships everywhere.

But the scholarships aren't enough. Since we no longer live in the US, he counts as an out-of-state student at every college. While his scholarships cover full tuition in almost every case, they only cover IN-STATE tuition. Out-of-state tuition costs more than double in-state. Add in housing and food and plane tickets and it's too much.

So - on to plan B. He can attend the local community college for two years and transfer to either a provincial university or a school in the US, if he saves enough money. Here's the cost difference:

Four years as an out-of-state student at one of the state universities: $26,000 - $29,000 per year. Total: $104,000 to 116,000


Two years at community college: $3500 per year. Two years at regional university: $15,000 per year. Total: $37,000


Two years at community college: $3500 per year Two years at US university: (out-of-state) $27,000. Total $61,000



Interestingly, what's bugging me the most isn't the outcome of my son attending the regional community college/university. It's not "winning" the scholarship "game." It feels like we stole the football at our five yard line, ran it all the back up the field and got within a foot of making the goal and then dropped the ball.

I mean, for heaven's sakes - he got the grades, did the applications, aced the tests, got accepted, got the highest scholarships these schools offered.....and still isn't going. ARGH!


Halving it all isn't always pretty, folks. But at the end of the day, my son will still get a fantastic education at a third of the price in-province and at about half the price even if he attends a US university for his third and fourth year.

I'll choose halving my costs over taking out loans or borrowing against the mortgage any old day.

Kids Halving it All

Two days ago I announced to my family that spring break (in three weeks) was going to mean spring cleaning for us. After working 24/7 for the last year and a half I need a break and my house needs to be scrubbed from top to bottom.

Yesterday, son #3 was home sick and apparently bored because suddenly he started hauling boxes and bags out of his room and into mine. Then he started hauling furniture out. By the end of the afternoon things were pretty bare.

Being the good mom that I am, I yelled at him. :(

In my defense, I did say that spring cleaning was going to happen in three weeks - NOT YESTERDAY. I am currently working 12 hour days finishing a huge production push with my job and I am not ready to move furniture, go to Good Will or any of those things. I am a little bit at the end of my rope.

It's good to know the kids have absorbed de-cluttering skills, however.

Radical Homemakers, by Shannon Hayes

Thanks to a recommendation on a forum, I ordered Radical Homemakers for my Kindle last night and started reading it right away. I'm not sure how I missed this one before, since it's right up my alley. Anyway, I'm finding it's pushing me to think about "halving it all" in a whole new way.

When I started this blog, I wasn't working outside the home. I was, in fact, doing what many of the people in Shannon's book are doing - finding ways to live frugally and make things myself as a way to live a better life.

But I struggle with wanting and at some point that wanting became so strong I started several jobs: I went back to child care (teaching preschool) and I started a publishing business. Child care was fun because I love kids and I got nice steady paychecks, which I'd missed during my years at home. The publishing business was fun because it used every ounce of my brainpower and was a roller-coaster ride of learning new things and averting crises.

Then something happened, actually a convergence of things. I looked up a few months ago and realized that I no longer have time for my family - any time. I rush through meals, which I no longer cook: my husband took that over. I go days only exchanging a few sentences with the older kids. I rarely go outside. Rarely. Instead, I work twelve to fourteen hour days for very little remuneration. I eat out more, as a "reward" for my hard work. I've put on twelve pounds in the last year - a lot for my small frame. I eat ibuprofen like candy. And twice in the past two years a large corporation (one of the giants) has damaged my family's earning potential by throwing its weight around in ways that are criminally unfair to the people who create the products it sells.

Why am I doing this? I find myself asking again and again. Is it worth it? What do I really need that money for?

According to Radical Homemakers, I'm not alone in longing for my old, more sane, life. Part of the reason I wanted a career is because I felt so boring at cocktail parties (the few I attended). When people asked me what I did, I said "I'm a mom." If pressed, I said, "I homeschool." I could talk your ear off about curriculum, and often did, but most people didn't care, or were antagonistic to the concept.

Now that I have the career, people are somewhat interested, but only for a few minutes. That's not a good enough reason to lose track of my own kids, the weather and the phase of the moon.

I look forward to reading the rest of Radical Homemakers to see what choices others have made in my shoes.

Hard Choices

I am far from perfect. I struggle with keeping a consistent life vision in my head, and I have an all or nothing type personality which means I'm often riding high on a new project or crashing and burning with an old one.

Last night I crashed and burned. Strung out from way too much computer time, facing several months of work that simply can't be done any faster but must be done before I take on new projects which are beckoning me, I fell into a fit of the I wants.

The litany basically goes like this: I want to move back to California. I want to travel the world. I want to be a homemaker but also have an endless supply of money. I want to be thin. I want to be beautiful. I want to be successful. I want it all right now.

At times like these it's hard to remember why I made each choice I made along the road. It's hard to viscerally recall how much I hated working 60 hour weeks and had no time for my own children. That's why I left California and moved north. It's hard to remember how much I wanted to use my particular skills and brainpower. That's why I started my own company. It's hard to remember that I was the one who said I had to publish 65 books last year. That's why I gained ten pounds.

I can make new decisions. In fact, I'm suffering today because I am making a decision over and over again: I am choosing to edit audio for far more hours than is comfortable for my body because I want to get it done and have it all squared away before I take on the new projects that beckon me. I could choose differently - I could do a little each day.

I keep telling myself that in the future I will make good, sane choices that will allow me to have a lot more fun in my life. I tell myself, Work hard now while it's cold and snowy so I can play when it's sunny in a few months. It's a valid choice as long as I keep remembering I'm the one making it - no one is imposing it on me.

Job Flexibility in a Changing World

I just read a post by Alisa Valdes on Publishing Perspectives about her forays into self-publishing. Alisa is the author of a popular novel called The Dirty Girls Social Club, that did very well with a traditional publisher. She is self-publishing the third book in the series.

What struck me was some fear-mongering responses in the comment section. Yes, it's true that many self-published authors don't expend enough care on getting their work edited or getting a nice cover, but instead of offering helpful hint, the commenters slam the idea all together.

Why is that?

I think in some part it's fear for their own jobs. An editor writes in to say it's not fair to use your mother as an editor. A cover artist thinks only professional artists can do a good job. Sounds to me like sour grapes.

Back when I started my audio book company I put out a call for audio editors and sent out descriptions of the tasks I'd need done by whomever took the contracts. An established audio editor read this description and sent back a furious letter detailing me all the ways I was "doing it wrong." Evidently, the tasks should have been broken down and handed out to about six different people, all of whom needed to be paid around a $100 an hour.

Guess what? That was the old studio system. I use a new system - one in which a person sitting at their own home computer can get the work done in a fraction of the time with free software. I understand why that man was angry - he'd probably spent years building that big studio, and as a man in his 50s I'm sure it was intimidating to think of changing careers.

I got the message back in college that I should be prepared to switch careers a number of times in my life, and I also believed from day one that Social Security would be gone by the time I hit retirement. I feel lucky that I heard and absorbed these ideas because it's set me up to not be so afraid of needing to rethink the way I work in the latter half of my life. I am watching my industry change daily. I know for a fact that what works today won't work two years from now and I'm preparing for that. I don't want to be like the angry man I referred to above, watching a new generation speed by me and having no idea how to catch up.

I actually already have a plan for my late sixties/early seventies. I will downsize and cash out, live in a small apartment in a town that's set up well for walking, and take care of two babies for spending money.

Now I only need to come up with the five careers I'll need between now and then.

What is Good Work?

It is a trip to come back to this blog. The past two years have been a whirlwind period of my life where a lot of things changed and a lot stayed the same. Recently I started a new blog as a place to mull over my latest life questions when I realized the new issues have a lot to do with the issues I used to discuss in this blog.

In essence, when I used to post to this blog I was going through my things and trying to figure out how to simplify life by cutting back on clutter and possessions. I wasn't alone in this. I didn't know it at the start of my journey, but simplifying life was a theme that tons of people shared.

I stopped posting when I ran out of things to "cut in half". I'd gone through my clothes, my books, my kitchen, my kids' toys - everything. I even got rid of my car for a month and hoofed in everywhere. I talked about cutting back on utilities and so on, and the food budget...what else was there to do?

Well, lots actually.

When I tapered off of posting here, I revved up a new home business. I started with editing, added audio book production and then sequed into publishing. My publishing business is now a going concern. We put out over 50 audiobooks last year and they appear everywhere from Amazon to Audible to Barnes&Noble, to libraries all around the continent...It's an exciting business and really gratifying work.

But something's been happening lately. A few things, really.

1. My body hurts. All the time. My eyes hurt, I get headaches, I walk around like an old woman - all stiff (and I'm not an old woman!), I've gained weight....quite frankly, I look like crap a lot of the time.

2. My children are now raised by wolves. Okay, not really, but I'm not sure who is raising them, because I'm not. Okay, okay, my husband has picked up a ton of slack and that's probably okay - he has a better relationship with them, appreciates what it takes to run a house, and has gotten to cook all the food he likes to eat for the past two years. I, however, feel like a peripheral object in the mirror - smaller than I should appear. The house doesn't feel like mine anymore. Sometimes the kids don't feel like mine.

3. I am beginning to wonder if there is life beyond the computer. The things I create have no physical presence in the world. On the one hand that's good - no trees have to die for my books to live; they are all digital. On the other hand, I feel like I'm selling books in a world that's inundated with books to people I'll never see....and sometimes I wish the fruits of my labors were more immediate. I have a side job teaching preschool three mornings a week, mostly to get me away from my computer for a few hours every other day before my eyeballs explode. I used to rank it lower than my intellectual publishing job. Now, however, I am valuing it more and more. It's real. I perform a service that has immediate implications for my customers. I'd like it if more of my work felt that way.

4. I am taking the good part of good work more seriously. As my husband says, we keep talking about things and not doing them. Isn't time to get to it? I've never been a climate change alarmist, or one to jump on a bandwagon. I figure we'll probably make it through the rest of my life without too much hassle - especially up here where we live. Still, I'm beginning to take it all more seriously and wondering if it's time to think about the longer term. My husband craves a small farm - has been craving it for years. I can get on board with it, if we can find the right place.

Oh, I'm running on and on. What I'm trying to say is that instead of being into slow food, I'm getting into Slow Living. I'm tired of running all the time, tired of being chained to a computer, tired of huge corporations making decisions that affect the quality of my life.

So now - Halving it All is going to be about work and life, finding the balance. Wanting a little less, working a little less, but doing more good work and wanting more good things.

Does that make sense?

Where is Jennifer?

I've been working on several new projects, so while this blog is inactive, why don't you come and take a look?

I'm experimenting with a new publishing format. Check out my online serialized novel here: Shadow Armies. I update it daily.

And I'm gearing up my editing business with a new blog here: Editor Jennifer.

See you there!