Saving for your Child’s Education and Your Retirement (You CAN Do Both!)

by Felicia Hodges

Life with children is not for the faint of heart - or wallet. The cost of rent or mortgage, insurance, car payments and food being what they are, taking care of your family’s basic needs can put a strain on almost any budget. You want to start squirreling away at least a little something for your future retirement and your children’s pending college costs, but how?

“The balancing act is a tough one and may [people] struggle to find a way to make it work,” says Jennifer Ridley Hanson, Director of Financial Planning for Financial Finesse, an agency that educates women on how to better invest and save money. “Sending your children to college is an important goal for most couples, but so is retirement.”

But where should you begin? Is saving for both even possible?

Ridley Hanson says it is. The trick is to make it a part of your monthly routine.

“Many people make the mistake of waiting until all of the monthly bills are paid and then they save what - if anything - is left over,” she says. “The problem with this strategy is that there may not be anything left over, or leftover money can get spent on something else.” If you have budgeted all you can and there really isn’t anything left, Ridley Hanson suggests you re-evaluate your spending and cut away what is not absolutely necessary. “If you don’t get into the savings habit now, it will not get any easier in the future and you’re losing valuable time for your retirement and college investments to grow,” she adds.

Never Too Late to Start

Whether you child is 16 days old or 16 years, most financial experts

say it is never too late to start saving for college. The same is true for your retirement.

“Any amount of money - no matter how small - saved today, will have a

greater value tomorrow,” says Michael Darne, Director of Business

Development at Wiredscholar.com, a site produced by Sallie Mae for

college-bound students, their parents and guidance counselors.

"Investing just a few dollars a week from the time a child is born can

grow significantly over 18 years. If you can’t put away as much as you

think you will need, don't give up. Something is better than nothing."

“The best way to begin is to think about what you can realistically accomplish based on your current situation and time frame,” Ridley Hanson says. “If you’re 55 and want to retire at 60, it may not be possible to save $1,000,000 in [that time]. Look at what you can really save and then look at the best way to save it.” She adds that Traditional or Roth Individual Retirement Accounts - savings which are retirement savings vehicles with tax benefits - are good vehicles to use if you don’t have access to a retirement plan at work or you are self-employed.

Also realize that you may not be able to do it all as far as saving for college goes, nor do you have to. According to The College Board, 40% of students in four-year schools contribute less than $4,000 towards college costs while almost 70% pay less than $8,000. Much of the balance is paid via financial aid, grants, loans or by the students working between or after classes. The US Department of Education says that almost $75 billion in grants and loans is awarded annually.

“Kids can work their way through college, but Mom and Dad can't work their way through retirement when they are 80 and 90 years old,” Ridley Hanson says. “Parents who sacrifice their retirement savings in order to send their kids to college may become financially dependent on those kids in the future if they don’t have enough for themselves.”

For some families, college and retirement can come around at the same time. If that is your reality, you can invest in a general investment pool which can be tapped to pay for each goal as needed. Listed below are some of the most common vehicles families just like yours look to invest their savings. Be sure to speak with a financial planner, tax advisor or other financial expert for more information on what would work best for your family’s needs.

Mutual Funds - These funds are issued via shares from an investment

company that is obliged to redeem or repurchase them from the owners upon demand. Look for a fund with a good track record and low expenses.

Savings Bonds - Generally considered relatively safe investment

vehicles, savings bonds are fully backed by the US Government. Their

rate of growth is relatively slow (maturity takes a number of years) and may not yield enough not keep up with the rate of inflation if used by themselves.

Traditional Individual Retirement Account/Roth IRA - Traditional IRA

contributions may be tax-deductible depending on your income. Withdrawals from either IRA can be used to pay for qualified higher education expenses without the 10% IRS early withdrawal penalty.

Section 529 Plans - Many states now offer college savings program lets you put money away (as little as $25 to open) then transfer your investment to any accredited college or technical school in the country.

Remember, saving a little is better than saving nothing. The sooner you start, the more you’ll have when you need it.

For More Information:

Financial Finesse - This company helps educate women on how to better invest and save their pennies through their national seminars, a radio show and web site (www.financialfinesse.com).

www.wiredscholar.com - an inclusive on-line resource for college

preparation that features evaluation, selection, application and

financing. It also features savings calculators to help you figure out

how much you should save and how much you will need in the future.

"Get Ready for College" - a college planning guide for parents of

younger children available from Nellie Mae, the nation's largest

non-profit provider of student loans. Call 1-800-9-TUITION for a free

copy.

Felicia Hodges is a writer/editor from New York.

Critical Mass: Keeping Breast Cancer at Bay

Somewhere today, a woman dressed only in a pair of underwear and a paper gown will sit on a crinkly sheet of white paper and listen to her doctor discuss the amputation of part of her body in order to save her life. She'll probably be forced to ingest all sorts of medical terminology and even make decisions affecting the rest of her life in the time it takes you to read this paragraph. Because breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among American women, this scene will unfortunately repeat itself about 175,000 times this year alone, sometimes to women well under 40 with no family history of the disease. Sometimes even to women with children in grade school.

That's the bad news. The good news is that four out of every five lumps found are not even cancerous and a good number of the lumps that are malignant are detected before the cancer has spread to surrounding breast tissue or other parts of the body. Women who perform monthly breast self exams (BSE's) find an amazing 85% of all lumps. Tragically though, the American Cancer Society estimates that the 44,500 women who will die this year as a result of the disease could have been significantly reduced if more women regularly practiced BSE's. The problem? Some women just forget. Others aren't exactly sure what it is they're looking for. Many are simply too afraid of what they might find.

My 50-year-old aunt, - who was 18 when she first diagnosed with fibocystic (or "lumpy" breast) disease after she found a cyst in her left breast and 28 when she had her first mammogram (low-dose x-ray of the breast tissue) - is still afraid. Although she began yearly mammograms at age 35 because of her condition, she still says she has to steel her nerves to call and make her yearly appointment. 

"I freak. I absolutely hate it. I dread it and I put it off. I know I need to go and I simply don't want to," she says. Still, to help keep her personal history from becoming a family one, she has taught her 18-year-old daughter to do BSEs and reminds her to check her breasts regularly.

Nurturers that we are, we mothers are so used to taking care of everyone and everything often before we even think of caring for ourselves. How many of us have climbed out of bed with a fever to do a quick load of laundry or prepare a hot meal for our families? Who of us hasn't ignored a nagging pain but made sure the children get their physicals in time for back-to-school? Especially for Black women, the belief that we are somehow pre-programmed to be able to endure any and every hardship that comes our way is powerful.

"The one myth that I have had to endure my entire life is that of my supposed birthright to strength," writes Meri Nana-Ama Danquah in Willow Weep for Me, a memoir on Black women and depression. "Black women are supposed to be strong - caretakers, nurturers, healers of other people - any of the twelve dozen variations of Mammy... hardship is supposed to be built into the structure of our lives. It went along with the territory of being both Black and female in a society that completely undervalues the lives of Black people and regards all women as second-class citizens." But, because no one is quite sure what causes breast cancer to develop and because there is, as of yet, no cure, we can't wait to begin fighting this disease. The only protection we have is early detection. Putting off until tomorrow what we need to do today can lead us down the slippery slope of passivity against a disease we have to be actively vigilant against to beat.

Each October, when all the Breast Cancer Awareness Month facts and figures are floating around, it hits me how much that lack of vigilance, as well as ignorance about the nature breast cancer may actually play in the number of deaths attributed to this disease. For example, before my mother lived through her own doctor's office scene in 1988, none of my female family members knew that African-American women make up too large a portion of breast cancer fatalities because it is often detected in later stages when the cure rate is so horribly low. 

Of the seven women on my mother's side of the family, only three of them - my 66-year-old grandmother, her 68-year-old sister and the aunt mentioned earlier - had ever even had a mammogram, although it is widely recommended that women have their first or "baseline" mammogram between ages 35 and 40, one every two years between 40 and 50 and one every year after age 50. My mother - who actually should have had four mammograms by the time she was initially diagnosed at age 44, was never given detailed information about mammography although she saw her doctor for a physical every year. The headstone erected over her grave site is a vivid reminder that what you don't know can hurt you very badly.

What you should know is that several factors, including having a personal or family history of the disease (especially if breast cancer occurred in a mother, sister or grandmother before they reached menopause), giving birth after age 30 and having a long menstrual history (menstrual periods that started early and ended late in life) can increase the chance that you may develop breast cancer at some point in your lifetime. Recent research has also linked high-fat, low-fiber diets to increase breast cancer risk.

But diagnosis does not automatically mean death or even the loss of a breast. The key is to catch the cancer early, before it has spread. So, take the time each month to examine your breasts. Have your health care provider conduct a manual exam and show you how to do one yourself at your next visit. Encourage your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, your aunts, your nieces, your friends, your neighbors and your co-workers to do the same. Remind the woman in the line behind you at the grocery store about her yearly mammogram. Like you, she is someone's mother or daughter, sister or aunt, niece or friend, neighbor or co-worker.

Please don't let cost keep you from getting a mammogram. In most cases, insurance carriers and Medicare will cover the cost fully. Some states have special programs funded by county health departments and administered through organizations like area YWCAs to help women without any health care coverage or with very high deductibles obtain free breast cancer screenings. Call your local YW or the National Cancer Institute at 1-800-4-CANCER for more detailed information. 

I can't help but think that if my own mother could have read this information all those years ago, she might still be around today, spoiling the stuff out of the grandson she never got to meet.

For my mom, for the millions of women whose lives have already been lost to this devastating disease, for the daughters like me that they have left behind: protect yourself. No one else can do it for you. 

The real fear should not be in finding a lump - it should be in not finding that lump in time enough to save your life.

Felicia Hodges is a freelance writer/editor in upstate, New York.

Originally appeared in Tri-CountyWoman magazine (Fall 2007)

Learning to Feel Good About the Way You Look

by Felicia Hodges

"How's my baby Beluga doing today?"  was how Missy Taylor's husband, Frank, greeted her every morning when she was in the last trimester of her pregnancy with their daughter, Judith.  He would often pat her belly and jokingly ask her if she needed him to help roll her out of bed.

"It was awful," Missy recalls. When I told him how much his words stung, he would just shrug it off and say I was being overly sensitive because of the [pregnancy]  hormones."

For 33-year-old R.N. Lisa Crowley , the time of year that produces the most anxiety is when  her favorite clothing stores box up the turtlenecks and corduroys and put out summer shorts, spaghetti-string tops and bathing suits. "It always seems like it's too soon to be preparing myself for trying  on what seems like 100 swim suits," she says.  "I feel like I shouldn't even look at anything short-sleeved until I've lost the ten pounds I put on since the last time I had my bathing suit on, but they never give me the choice."

Two days after my son was born, I was returning to the hospital to nurse him (he had to remain a few days extra due to some lung difficulties) when a woman stepped onto the elevator. Trying to make small talk on our way up to the maternity floor, she turned to me, patted my stomach and said "So when are you due?" I couldn't get home to start the worksheet of exercises the hospital gave me to help lose my middle fast enough. 

Because of this country's  obsession with thinness, many women have experienced feelings like Missy, Lisa and I have whenever we are perceived (or we perceive ourselves) as being different than the American standard of beauty. That a good number of American women diet in any given year (and the weight-loss industry rakes in hundreds of billions of dollars annually as a result) says  that those feelings are probably more the rule rather than the exception.

"We women are unfortunately identified by our physical attributes," says Debbie DeJong, assistant division director of community programs at the Orange County (New York) Mental Health Association. "[We're] either too big, not skinny enough or [our] breasts are too small. As a result, we're always trying to change how we are," she adds.

Of course, advertisers don't seem to help matters at all, bombarding us almost non-stop with images of super-thin super-models, hawking everything from toothpaste to floor cleaners.

"Usually the modeling industry chooses women without hips, which means they are very young. They also pose women in ways that make them look like they don't have hips when they really do," says psychotherapist Elizabeth Leach. "The norms they set up for us are just not realistic."

What about how those norms effect our daughters who see the same magazine covers and TV ads that we do? Is there a way to keep them from getting sucked into accepting the "You-need-to-look-like-Kendall-Jenner-Priyanka-Chopra-or-Kate Moss-to-have-a-meaningful-life (via ultra-white teeth and super shinny floors)-and-be-truly-happy-with-yourself" message as truth?

The trick, experts say, is not to re-enforce such ideas at home. 

"As mothers, we need to be really clear with the messages we send our daughters. If they see us surviving off of one cracker at dinner, that's what they'll want to do as well," says Lynne Newman, a counselor and Reike practitioner who specializes in women's issues. "We need to say clearly [to them] that you need to be who you are, not who I or they want you to be." 

Newman says this is also what we should also be telling the same thing, especially before, during and after pregnancy. "A lot of how you feel [about the changes your body experiences during pregnancy] has to do with how you felt about your body before you got pregnant. Body changes during pregnancy are normal, unfortunately most people equate pregnancy with being fatter," she says. "If you are comfortable with your body before and during pregnancy, you'll feel comfortable after."

So, where does a non-size four woman with hips, thighs, a belly and a newborn daughter begin?

"Accepting what your particular body looks like, whatever it looks like, is important," says Helen Bunt, a YWCA fitness instructor, who adds that exercise is one way to make that acceptance possible. "Exercise is my personal mainstay. People who I've introduced [to it] seem, to have a better view of life. They feel good about themselves." Recent research has attributed this feeling to an increase in brain levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin during physical activity.

Leach encourages women in her practice to not become too preoccupied with their ideal weight, represented by the number on a scale. She recommends the following for women who find themselves stuck in the body image/self-esteem trap:

• Be an informed consumer - Keep in mind that the photos of women you see in ads are unrealistic ideals designed solely to sell a product. "They are geared to make women feel inadequate so we will purchase their products," Leach says.
•  Focus on the positive - Pick out your strongest physical attributes instead of your weakest when looking in the mirror. 
•  Make a list - Write down all the things that make you feel good, like walking around your block with a neighbor, watching a favorite sit-com on TV or listening to soothing (or funky) music. Put a few of your list items in a box to pull out when you're feeling down. Add to your box regularly.
•  Draw a picture of what you think your body looks like - Get feedback from friends and relatives to see if what you see and what you think the world sees are in sync.
• Keep a "food journal" - Since, Leach says, many of us eat for reasons other than hunger (i.e. comfort, etc.), using a journal to note stressful events, your emotional state and how food factored into the before and after may help.
• Remember that weight is determined by many factors - Bone structure, amount of muscle tissue, etc. all factor into your "ideal" body weight. Get a physician's opinion, if necessary, but, again, don't become obsessed with the figure. "People come in many shapes and sizes for a reason," Leach says. "Think of yourself as a whole person, not just a number."

Sidebar:
Did you know?

The average American woman weighs 144 lbs. and wears between a

size 12 and 14?

Marilyn Monroe wore a size 12?

If shop mannequins were real women, they wouldn't have enough body fat to menstuate? 

Models, who 20 years ago weighed 8% less than the average woman, today weigh 23% less?

If Barbie were a real woman, she'd have to walk on all fours because of her unnatural proportions?

One out of every four college-aged women has an eating disorder?

A psychological study in 1995 found that three minutes spent looking at models in a fashion magazine caused 70% of women to feel depressed, guilty and ashamed?

There are 3B women who don't look like supermodels and only a few dozen who do?


Felicia Hodges is a writer/editor from upstate, New York.