I'm a worrier. I am especially good at worrying about money. I have graphs and charts, paper and digital. I have savings projections, lists of necessary and potential future expenditures, secret stashes and secret-stashes. But how to pay for college for three kids had me utterly baffled. They seem to be smart enough - but that is certainly no guarantee that they will get scholarships. Clearly I needed a different plan, but based on projected college costs it was almost impossible. College savings plans offer little tax relief and putting money in the stock market that will have to be extracted at a particular time is risky.
I found a great little calculator one day at
http://mortgage-x.com/calculators/extra_payment_calculator.asp
and I found out that instead of putting money in a risky investment plan, I could put that money in my house. I can pay off my house and then I'll have money to pay for college as we go! And my house will be paid off. (Some say that you shouldn't pay off your house but I'm all for being completely out of debt. But that's another story entirely.) If you buy a house before you have kids or shortly thereafter, you can pay off your house by just putting a little extra into the house every month. Run some scenarios on the calculator and see what you come up with.
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