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I was trying to decide what to focus on in this post because I’ve had several random thoughts spending some quality time in my mind lately.
Sometimes my brain just has stuff bouncing all over the place. So I decided, why not just touch on a bunch of them?
So here we are with a mish-mosh of random thoughts all crammed into one delightful mess of a blog post!
Between the action-packed stock market real-life movie so many of us are in, our current spending, and some interesting changes we might be making to help our daughter’s financial situation for college, it’s a jam-packed post!
Plus, right now, there’s a pretty good chance we’ll be moving again. Where the heck are we going now?! Find out here, folks!
The stock market roller coaster… dum dum dummm!!
When it comes to random thoughts, I think this one has been on a lot of folks’ minds. Has anyone noticed the stock market for the past several weeks? 😉
This is probably one of the first stock market bits of craziness that I’ve been paying a little more attention to in my life. Sure, I lived through:
- Black Monday (October 19, 1987) – too young to even care
- Dotcom Bubble Crash (2000-2002) – I wasn’t paying attention to the market, but coincidentally started really investing then… I was a genius without even knowing it!
- Global Financial Crisis (2008–2009) – I was still young and naive and just kept investing… still a genius!
- COVID-19 Crash (February–March 2020) – I was a little “smarter” then and had some cash on hand, so I “bought the dip.”
But this time around has been interesting. Politics aside, there’s no doubt that we brought this one on ourselves. Sure, the market was already overpriced, but this whole tariff game has been insane and kicked off mass confusion in the stock market.
Who knows how things will turn out? I’m optimistic that the market will come back, but what do I know? I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy, so I’ll stick with that. How long could it take to come back… you never know. It could take years, or it could be back to where it was by the time this post comes out.
What makes this unique for me is that we’re not working and we’re living off our portfolio. And then I watched it wipe $250k from our portfolio in a very short amount of time. That wasn’t pleasant to see…
I use the Empower Dashboard to keep an eye on our net worth (among a ton of other features it provides). It’s a free service and works extremely well if you want to try it out.
That said, I’m surprisingly not worried about it. Although this was mostly related to the implementation of tariffs and continues to snowball as folks “cut their losses” because they’re scared of seeing their portfolios being crushed, I was expecting this. I wasn’t expecting the tariffs, but drops in the market in general should be expected. That’s how a healthy stock market works, and I knew this would happen eventually.
Fortunately, we have our portfolio structured so we can get through 5-6 years without needing to sell any stock, which takes a lot of the worry away.
I’m not a CFP or CPA or anything like that, and I can’t give advice – nor will I. But I can tell you more of the random thoughts on my mind.
My initial thoughts are that hopefully, if you’re retired and living off your investments like we are, you’ve done something similar to what we did and don’t need to do anything rash. If I were nearing retirement, I’d consider seeing how this plays out for a little bit before pulling the trigger. If I were working full-time, I’d just put my nose down and keep doing what I’m doing. It’s money I don’t need right away, so I’d just keep going through the motions of saving and investing for the long term.
This time around, we weren’t sitting on any spare cash we could have thrown in. However, I did do one thing I thought was worthwhile… I did part of our annual Roth IRA conversion early.
I normally wait until December to see how much we should convert to give us the best ACA subsidies while still converting as much as we can while staying in a lower tax bracket. But I saw an opportunity and wanted to take advantage of it.
I converted $50k from my traditional IRA (my old 401(k)) to my Roth IRA. I’m sure we’ll still do more in December, but I thought this was a good move for us to start with. There’s no selling/buying involved – it’s just a recharacterization of the funds. But converting when the market is down means we’re moving more shares for the same dollar amount – kind of like buying more at a discount. That way, when those shares recover in the Roth, all the growth happens tax-free.
So that was it for us. I know some people don’t look at what the market’s doing, but I like to see it. Since it doesn’t phase me much and I know I won’t make any rash decisions, I think that’s fine.
That said, it’s natural to feel good when you see your portfolio growing rather than going down, so I selfishly hope the market rebounds sooner rather than later!
Some strategic planning for our daughter’s college costs
Our daughter, Faith, is almost 15 and is a high school freshman as a homeschooler. She started homeschooling when we moved to Panama (the country) in 2019. At the time, this was just going to be temporary until we got settled and would enroll her in an international school.
Well, she took to it well and preferred it to regular school. And we’ve been able to appreciate it as well since it gives us the flexibility to travel when we want. So she continued homeschooling even after we moved back to Ohio in 2022.
Life is good. She does well with it… and yes, she has a social life and friends… and no, she’s not missing out on the “high school experience.”
More importantly, she’s starting to consider colleges. It’s early, and we’re not oblivious that things may change over the next few years. That said, right now she’s considering going to school in North Carolina because they have a public university that’s supposedly a great school for her planned major.
Ok, so here are my random thoughts on this… I want in. Well, I’m sure she’s not going to let me live in the dorms with her, but I’ll settle for just moving to North Carolina. Winters in Ohio… yuck. I’m ready to go now!
What’s nice is that we have a lot of flexibility as early retirees, but especially as early retirees with a low household income every year.
So we’re talking about possibly moving to North Carolina in the near future. That gets us out of Ohio (yay for me!) and drops the cost of tuition for Faith. After doing some digging, you need to be a resident of North Carolina for 12 months prior to the first day of school to be eligible for in-state tuition. And that drops the cost of tuition down a ridiculous amount.
That means we’ll likely be here in Ohio for another year or two before we make the move. It’s not set in stone, but I do like the idea. My best friend from high school lives in the vicinity of where we’d be going, which is another bonus. Plus, Justin from Root of Good lives there, so we’d be in good company!
Besides that, Faith is strongly considering a community college for the first year or two to get some of the prerequisite courses out of the way. As a North Carolina resident with a low enough income (something we can control by molding the amount of our Roth IRA conversions), she should be able to do that for free. How’s that for an incentive?!
That flexibility to mold our income by adjusting our Roth IRA conversions should also help her get some good financial aid for the regular university in NC, too. Hopefully, she’d get some grants to bring down those costs even more.
Additionally, Faith is planning on doing some online college classes through dual enrollment at Arizona State University (ASU). I talked about that in my post, Phase 1: Powerful Strategies to Earn College Credits While Homeschooling, so I’ll let you read about that there if you’re interested in learning more about that.
As icing on the cake, she’s got about $30k in her 529 plan. While a decent chunk of money, it’s not a ton, and it’s a far cry from what’s needed to cover college costs nowadays. But it’s still something and another tool in the toolbelt. Combined with the other strategies I mentioned, it’s possible she could even have a little leftover in the 529 (even though it’s a long shot). If that does happen, she could roll the leftover 529 funds into her Roth IRA.
Again, these are all just random thoughts, and it’s hard to say what will happen. Maybe everything will fall into place, and perhaps nothing will, but that’s what’s been rolling around in my head lately.
So we could be moving to North Carolina, which we’d need to do by the summer of 2027. That’s a huge benefit to me since I can’t stand the winters in Ohio. It’s no Boquete, Panama, but it’ll do for now! 🙂
Spending’s up – blame the year of travel!
One of the other random thoughts on my mind has been our spending. It’s up quite a bit lately, and that always makes me a little uneasy.
That said, I knew our spending would be higher. We’re doing a ridiculous amount of travel within a single year (December 2024 – November 2025). We’re traveling for a third of the year, which is a lot. But with how the chips fell, this all needed to be done within a year – use it or lose it.
And even though we got ridiculous deals like $3,200 for a 38-night Europe trip worth about $25k, that’s still $3,200k. It’s also one of many trips throughout the year, and each of these trips costs us something. So, while we’re traveling the world on what should be a heckuva lot more money, it’s only a fraction of the cost… but it’s still a cost.
It makes me a little anxious, even though we’re still good on the money side of the equation. But it’s tough to be a frugal spender for so many years and then make that change to spending a little more than you’re used to.
The good news is that we front-loaded most of this travel. Even though our monthly spending reports in Quicken Simplifi have been abnormally high, our spending reports for the rest of the year should be a little lower than normal. We’ll still end up with a higher-spending year than normal, but I think it won’t be too outrageous. 🤞
Lighter travel in 2026
On the flip side, 2026 is going to be a much lighter travel year. We’re planning a trip to Hawaii in February or March of 2026 to stay with good friends of mine. We’ll be traveling with some other good friends in Ohio who plan to get an Airbnb and stay for a few weeks as well. We’ll likely also stay at a place with our friends from Ohio for part of the time, too. But I’m not great with long flights (as I’ve mentioned before), so I did some research to try to “fix” this somewhat. 😉
We blew out most of our accrued points and miles on all the 2025 travel we’re doing, so we needed a new plan. I learned that we could book United business/first class flights through Turkish Airlines from Los Angeles to Hawaii for only 15-20k points per person (30-40k points round-trip). Understand that this is on a United plane – it’s just being booked through Turkish.
In other words, we’d need only 40k points per person round-trip for the fancier class of service… this is a steal! It’s one of those things that you don’t know what you don’t know. Folks in the travel rewards game are well-versed in this sort of thing, but I’m still learning this sort of minutia.
So after some more digging, I made a plan. Lisa has over 40k points in her Citi account right now – so she’s already covered for her round-trip flight. I just signed up for the Citi Strata Premier card with a 75k sign-up bonus after a $4k spend in 3 months. We’ll make sure to do $5k in spending, which will put us at 80k points – enough for round-trip flights for me and Faith as well. Cool, right?
We’ll try to complete the spending sooner rather than later, though, since there’s a finite number of business/first-class seats available for awards on each plane. Booking sooner vs later is better.
Then we’ll accrue some more miles in our Southwest accounts for the flights to LA. That will either be through regular spending on my Southwest cards or maybe by opening another card with the ability to transfer to Southwest or another airline.
Credit card travel rewards are immensely powerful and have saved us absurd amounts of money and let us travel more than we ever could have before. They’ve also provided for a better class of service on many flights and at hotels, too.
If you don’t carry any credit card balances and love the idea of traveling more for free or cheap, check out Travel Freely. It’s a completely free service I use and love that helps you track your cards, spending requirements, bonuses, and more. It provides notifications to remind you of annual fees as well as options on what to do with those cards at renewal time. And it helps you figure out the right cards to sign up for that align with your goals.
You can read more about the free service in my post, The #1 Best Way To Track Credit Card Rewards, and my Credit Card Travel Rewards page. Or you can sign up for Travel Freely here.
In addition to the Hawaii trip, we might do a vacation with Lisa’s side of the family (usually a beach or lake vacation). And Lisa and I might do a getaway for our 20th wedding anniversary next year.
So, it’s still a little bit of travel and vacations, but nothing like what we have going on currently. Although I have a feeling we’ll start getting antsy and probably end up doing a cruise at the end of 2026 or the beginning of 2027. 😂
There you have it, my friends – just some random thoughts I’ve had that I thought I would share. If you enjoyed this post, consider signing up for the mailing list. It’s free, I keep you in the loop on the latest posts and what’s going on otherwise. Plus, I’ll send you some spreadsheet freebies I created and use routinely to make my life easier, and they could do the same for you!
Plan well, take action, and live your best life!
Thanks for reading!!
— Jim
I’d advise her agressively seeking scholarships as part of college prep. All three of my kids went to college for free, including room and board and books, due to obtaining multiple scholarships. None of them had perfect SAT or ACT scores either, they had good, but not incredible scores on their college entrance exams. And they got the college money in spite of our family income being well over six figures, as I was a high earner. They are all millenials and I think the free ride scholarship game has gotten more difficult for younger generations, but its still worth pursuing.
Wow, that’s incredible! Focusing on scholarships is definitely a tool in the arsenal we were planning on doing. That’s amazing that they crushed it that much though – love it!
Hi Jim – This post is exactly what I needed. My brain is a constant whirlwind and “Random Thoughts” is my kind of read. I too have no worry about the market, it is what it is and although I plan to retire in a few years, I don’t need to touch my brokerage account for some time. I’ll just ride out the storm as I continue monthly investments and hope for the best. I’m confident it will be there when I need it.
Your early planning for college is the wise choice. Having a child with a chosen career path also makes life easier. We made sure our son made choices throughout high school that put him in a great position for scholarship and attending the school of his choice. I agree with STEVEARK regarding the scholarship game. We continually reinforced the idea that scholarship applications were to be viewed as a part time job. This mind-set paid off as he is graduating in a few weeks with his Masters from a top school with no debt. Everything was completely paid for through grants and scholarship money.
AND, we are also planning a trip to Hawaii in the near future. Thanks for the reminder about Turkish Airlines. Vigourously saving my points 🙂
Holy @#$%, Tracy – that’s amazing that your son’s getting his Masters with no debt. Super cool! What a great head start in life without that burden!
Enjoy your trip to Hawaii – we’ve never been there so I’m really excited. I hope we’re able to find availability once we get our points in line to book it! 🙂
Hi! Just love your all your posts, buy this one especially with your many random thoughts/ideas. Thank you for all you do. Question — How do you find out about booking flights through the Turkish airline, but flying United? I am trying to book flights from Newark, NJ to Athens, Greece but the amount of United miles needed are super high
Hi Claire – I’ve slowly been learning the “tricks of trade” with points and miles. The Frequent Miler site and podcast has been especially helpful for me though – highly recommended! That’s where I learned about booking United flights to Hawaii through Turkish Airlines. That said, that’s pretty well known in that realm, just not to us outsiders that don’t know how to play the game.
For your flight to Greece, check out PointsYeah. It’s a great tool to figure out strategic ways to use your points. The free version works well enough, but we might becoming paying customers down the line for it. There are other tools as well, but that one worked great for us. Good luck!
Another North Carolina resident soon? Very interesting! I don’t blame you for chasing the milder winters (and saving $10-15k on tuition as well!).
You guys will probably look good on paper for the FAFSA and getting some financial aid for NC in-state schools. We’ve certainly done well here with our 2 oldest kids about to graduate college this spring/summer on the financial aid front.
Both our college girls did the 2 year associates degree at NC community colleges and that was a huge head start toward a four year degree on the cheap.
Also worth mentioning that NC has some kind of “NC K-12 Virtual Academy” that I think some homeschoolers use. I’m not sure if it’s free or cheap or what, but our middle child had to do 1 course in there (for free for us) because her high school didn’t offer the class yet but it was (strangely) required for graduation.
The Clampetts might be coming your way soon enough! 😉
Nice job to your kids!! That’s interesting on the Virtual Academy – I’ll see what that’s all about. Thanks!
Wow, Faith thinking about college already. Good for her.
I think moving to get resident tuition is smart. When our son gets closer to college, we’ll probably do that, too. It’ll probably be in CA.
Then maybe I can show you around the east coast and you can show me around the west coast at some point! 😉
Jim, as a resident of the state of Ohio, have you looked into the College Credit Plus (CCP) program? I strongly suggest you investigate this. In other states it is known as dual enrollment. This is open to all students (public, private, and homeschool) grades 7-12. It allows you to get high school and college credit at the same time. See more at the Ohio department of education website:
https://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Ohio-Education-Options/Home-Schooling/College-Credit-Plus-for-Home-School-Families
You become a student of a participating college in Ohio and earn both high school and college credit. All public universities and community colleges must participate in Ohio. Classes can be online, in person at the college, or in person at the high school (teachers are certified to teach the college level version of the course). Bonus – there is a scholarship fund that should cover most, if not off all, of the costs for your daughter! If you do not get awarded enough credits, the out-of-pocket costs are significantly cheaper than paying face value at the university. I had to cover one class for my son this year, and it was $250. Bonus!
I would look into this for Faith. It may eliminate the need to attend community college or actually attend it concurrently with her high school studies. It may not allow her to necessarily graduate in 3 years instead of 4, but it may enable her to graduate with an additional major, minor(s), or certificate(s). Starting college as a 2nd year student may have other benefits like the ability to have a car on campus, priority over first year students in selecting housing, etc.
I know that her target school is in North Carolina. You can check the Transferology website (www.transferology.com) to see if the courses from her chosen Ohio college transfer to her target college in North Carolina.
Hope this helps. I am slightly ahead of you in the schooling process (one rising sophomore in college, one rising high school senior, and one rising high school freshman) and happy to discuss or bounce ideas.
-Mark
Thanks for all the info, Mark – it sounds like we’re on the same page with this one! I talked a little bit about CCP in my post, Phase 1: Powerful Strategies to Earn College Credits While Homeschooling.
Funny enough though, I think we’re going to go a different route and do some or all of the dual enrollment classes through ASU (I talked about that in my post as well). It’s something like $25 to take the class and $400 to add it to her transcript. That’s more than free but but it takes a lot of pressure off Faith because if she doesn’t do well, we just don’t pay the big amount and it doesn’t get added to her transcript. The whole idea is pretty interesting. Once she’s more comfortable, we might fall on leveraging CCP more.
I love the whole idea though – such a great way for motivated students to get ahead and hopefully save some good $$$ in the meantime.
Thanks for the heads up on Transferology, too – I haven’t heard of that, but it sounds just like what we’ll need!
Good luck with your three kids on this path, though it sounds like you’ve got this down pretty well already! 🙂
Great share/article.
Here are some 100% UNSOLICITED options to lower/reduce college costs….
Learn about FAFSA. For now, they do NOT look at 1) primary home and 2) retirement accounts (401k/IRAs). Also, distributions from a Roth 401k/Roth IRA do count.
IF you had an income of $46,600 or less, and she had an income under 12k-ish, she would get max Pell grants of $7350 (that may be reduced if you or she, have certain amounts in your bank account or brokerage accounts.
So how does one live off 46,600 in 2025 (or 2026…2027….and so on).
1.) Buy a home in cash and get it paid off. If you have a brokerage account…this could be a great way to use it while she is in college….then when she graduates (if rates are good)…..remortgage the house and go back to investing.
2.) This is going to vary state by state…but with 46k income…you may qualify for medicaid or at least get a big ACA subsidy. I have not yet learned any changes from the BBB that just passed.
3.) You could in theory, qualify for SNAP which could lower your food bill A LOT. A family of 3 with an income of 39k gets about $770 a month in my state (NY). Again, this varies state to state and there will be some phase out with higher incomes over 39k….and thats even if you want to claim it.
4.) Could qualify for HEAP $400 a year+ in heat assitance.
5.) Buy a multiunit. The depreciation on the other units will offset A LOT of the rent you would collect….you get the cashflow without the book income.
6.) Max out business expenses for those who are self-employed. If you are credit card hacking….maybe consider the business versions on the best cards (assuming you meet the spend requirements for the sign up bonuses).
7.) Travel points are NOT considered by FAFSA….so stock up and use them up while your kid is in college and spending is lower.
8.) FAFSA looks are your income from 2 years before your kid starts college. So for Fall 2025…they will look at 2023 returns. That is the 2nd half of sophomore year of high school + 1st half of Junior year. Then you can RAISE your income back UP in the 2nd half of your kids sophomore year in college (unless you have more than 1 kid). That said…see what you can PREPAY and upgrade BEFORE you nurf your income. Make sure your cars are reliable and use 2022 (or 2.1 years or more) before college starts to do some preemptive upgrades. Stock on non-perishables, upgrade the wardrobe a little, book a cruise 24 months in advance, stock up on gift cards for your favorite splurge restaurants for the year ahead (wouldn’t try getting them for 4 years out lol…but you do you).
9.) IF you travel hack AND spot a great deal on cash for points…do that. Also…work those sign-on bonus offers like all your vacations for 4 years depend on it…they may lol.
10.) Change your perspective. LOTS and LOTS of people LeanFi….46k for 3 people inside the LeanFi world would likely be ChubbyFi to them lol. So challenge yourself….this is a 3-4 year TEST/TRIAL to learn a NEW way to Fi and make your finances even MORE indestructible. Sure…we all would pull expenses back if the market TANKS…..but you will 100% be an EXPERT in this from this experience.
11.) **not for everyone….but self employment income. Grow that side hustle and write off as MUCH as you can! If you get ACA…write off healthcare….write off home office…..mileage….and more. If you make OVER 46k after expenses, pay your kid to do some stuff you dont want to do in the business. Students can make up to 12k-ish before Pell reduces. Also…for some careers…you can plan personal travel AROUND work travel to reduce costs.
12.) Make some of your assets income-neutral. We JUST became a 2 car family (we both work from home) and I love the convenience….but how could I justify my 2nd car when we are limiting income? By having earned income and having expenses for it. Enter TORO. Rent out our 2nd car a bit to offset our insurance/car repair cost. I do know this can increase insurance costs and repairs…but it IS VERY possible and not that crazy. same is true to AirBnB our home when we are on extended trips….though I am less sure I want people sleeping in MY bed lol. Any income could offset home repairs, upgrades, or furniture upgrades.
13.) Students who get Pell usually get the first shot at work/study jobs at school and can get even more reduced tuition AND pay.
To sum it up…here is a break out I worked out for my family far down the road (kids are 8 and 5…so a LOT can change).
1.) When oldest kids gets to 2nd half of sophmore year (family of 4)…..try to earn 53k-57k from AFTER expense self-employment. Make sure to take full advantage of write offs like home office expenses and mileae for work. This increases my yearly cash flows.
2.) MAYBE have a 2 unit home, paid off….would likely NET about 2k income…so TOTAL income is 55-59k.
3.) Hire my kids to do lots of grunt work for my company (I do online markets…there is a lot of grunt work around to be done). Pay each 5k-7k a year. Now my income is around $47k.
4.) With my kids getting full Pell $7350 and a paycheck from dad of $5-7k doing legit work….then potential work study AND well 100% encourage summer jobs (until they hit 12k of earned income)….the bank of mom and dad is CLOSED. We will HAPPILY support them living home, rent free the first 2 years and then a token rent of $100-$300 a month (which goes into a brokerage account for their first home…we wont keep it). Car insurance, they pay, gas they pay, college trips and clubs, they pay (maybe dad will donate some Hyatt stays ….off peak times of course lol), books…they pay. Afterall…..12k earnings and 7.3k …thats over 19k…for a COLLEGE KID LIVING AT HOME, paying low taxes lol. NOT BAD.
Now lets talk cash flows….can we make it work for our family…..
1.) At 47k….we have no mortgage….100% of medical is covered in New York State….so no healthcare costs….family of 4 gets almost $12k in SNAP groceries….so little to no grocery bill…..$400 a year in heat….extra $7k in earned income tax credits (didnt mention that yet lol), $2k in Savers credit if we ut 4k in the old roth accounts, $2k credit of American Opportunity Credit (assuming we do in fact pay for some of the kids college expenses….even though I stated I wouldnt….I am a softie lol). Also, would get about 8k in rent cash flow (6k is written off from depreciation on the tenant’s unit).
2.) My 47k FEELS more like 47k (income) + 20k (healthcare) + 12k (groceries) + 7k (earned income credit, fully refundible) + 2k (American Opportunity Credit…I belive 1k is refundible) + $0.4k (HEAP) MINUS 4k going into our Roths + 2k (savers credit) = 86.5k tax home AND 6k added to the Roth IRA’s. Not bad. Also…very little in taxable income. Remember….I am only showing 47k in AGI….minus 30k standard deduction for a married couple. So well be 10% federal bracket, 4.5% for New York, 15.3 for self-employment taxes. That is about 30% on 17k…about 5k. So we would take home a bit over 80k after tax, with a paid off house…and our kids would have ample income to support their hobbies, transportation, and college purchases.
Could things change…100%. Could we hit a big emergency and have to jettison our plan for a year….its possible but not massively likely. We would make sure our cars would be in ship shape and our home in the years before throttling our income. Medical emergency we would have an HSA to lean on, non medical emergency we would take out a HELOC….as debt isnt factored into FAFSA, Snap, EIC or other benefits. Pay off the debt once college is done.
Would I use Roth IRA while the kids are in college…no….id keep working part time so I qualify for the earned income credit, savers credit and FAFSA/Pell. I would let my Roth and other retirement grow in the back ground.
Would we both work…nope. My wife would 100% be off enjoying early retirement for herself. I will work part time to the point I am nearing my income limits. If things stay stable where they are now…this is about 20 hours a week OR LESS. I am trying to get that down to 15 hours a week or less AND 4-6 100% off weeks a year. I would rather have more time than money. I would consider full retirement when the kids are 100% out of college.
Would that mean we do nothing fun. NOPE….I am 100% hoping travel hacking is STILL around then…plus I hope to have a nice stash of points. We like hiking and traveling to cheap countries too….so as long as we get cheap/free flights…well enjoy more travel in low-cost countries….will also look to enjoy road trips to national parks and visiting family (free stays). This is also a perfect time for my wife, who has a small itch, to start a company for a few different ideas, to launch her ideas. Bills are paid, kids are older, and earning less is beneficial lol. I will use the time to learn odd hobbies I find interesting like building a solar system for our house (will buy the part the year before lol) …. any luck…we could cross off home electric and heating costs and maybe vehicle gas costs too lol.
So for now…this is just 1 option of many potential options for the future. I may not do much of the above-listed…but they are legal and viable options.
Wow, that’s a heckuva detailed comment, Will! I love it! When I get some time, I’m going to read through this more deeply to try to soak it all in. I appreciate all the good advice – the hardest part about FAFSA and tuition costs (especially reducing the costs) is that you don’t know what you don’t know. So, I’ll be looking at this info more to figure out what we can apply to our situation. Thanks so much!