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Editor’s Notebook:

The Second Phase Has Some Hidden Costs

Editor’s Notebook

by Rick Bell

If you have a child graduating from high school this week like I do, congratulations; you’ve made it through Phase I of “Raising a Child: Boy, They’re a lot More Expensive than I Figured 18 Years Ago.”

Now buckle up for Phase II. This is where it gets really pricey.

Like us, you’ve somehow scraped up money over the years for crates of diapers, years of day care, piano lessons, field trips, braces, club sports, car insurance and prom (priced a limo lately?). How’d you do this, short of sticking up a bank? Selling your kid’s old CDs only goes so far.

The cost of trumpets and cleats and backpacks add up fast. You’ve learned to magically make money appear when you find a note under a stack of papers saying the band needs $50 by tomorrow, or the middle school fund-raiser form is due the next day and your child hasn’t sold anything, not to even grandma and grandpa.

This past year has been a little taxing as well, hasn’t it? And I’m not talking about losing another one as a deduction.

Senior year in high school has become expensive, what with senior portraits, SATs, college application fees, visits to those campuses and , you did mail them out already, didn’t you? , graduation invitations.

Take heart; every single penny, every buck you plunked down on your kid all comes to fruition later this week when your son or daughter steps on the podium and gets that sheepskin. Like I said before, you made it , your kid made it! , neither the worse for wear. You’re a little grayer maybe, but I bet that nervous twitch thing your eye does now will go away in a year or two with the proper medication.

Over these past 18 years you may have stashed away some cash for the kid’s college education. Bully for you.

But if you think you’ve saved enough money for college, think again. That’s no criticism, just a fact.

Still, be proud of yourself if you’ve saved even $500; that’s three or four less books you’ll be buying in the fall. Rather than spend it on school supplies, tell them to put it toward meals instead. That’s at least enough for a semester’s worth of Top Ramen, macaroni and cheese and a couple jars of Tang.

Maybe you have saved enough for tuition, books and room and board. By most calculations, tuition alone at a state institution is about $3,700. At a private college, the cost of tuition and fees is just over $17,000. Hello, second mortgage. Or is it the third?

Remember, these figures don’t include food, clothing, dorms, alcohol or cell phone bills. Here’s where you really get hit though.

Let’s say your son or daughter chooses to go to school in San Francisco, as our oldest did two years ago. Not clean across country, mind you, but far enough away so the fossils won’t be snooping around every other weekend.

A guarantee: No matter what airline you choose to fly them home for weekends or holidays, there will not be any cheap fares.

And plan for at least two emergency visits per semester. It can go either way, but more than likely you’ll be booking a several-hundred-dollar next-day flight to comfort/chastise/surprise your child or someone at their school. Unless you have relatives or friends there, or plan on pulling up a corner of a dorm room floor, you’ll need a place to stay.

You’ll need transportation too. Food would be good, since those airline peanuts only go so far. Don’t plan to nibble on the kid’s Top Ramen; that’s rationed out for the rest of the semester.

So while Phase I was stuff like money for the movies and new trucks for the skateboard, Phase II reaches a whole new level of spending.

You thought things were going to change once they moved out of the house? Go ahead and redecorate the bedroom, but no amount of paint will change the fact that our kids will always be with us, and that all along all we’ve wanted to do is to give them the platform to succeed.

Good luck in Phase II, parents. Enjoy this weekend’s celebrations. Enjoy your children’s company, because it becomes a whole new stage of life this fall.

Bell is the Business Journal’s managing editor.

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