I remember when I was a young girl sitting down with my mom and I would observe her doing the books when she ran her businesses. I would sit at the kitchen table with her as she punched the calculator, budgeted the bills and wrote out checks monthly. I really appreciated learning all of those things from my mom. My mom worked very hard to raise me and my sister and she did the best she could but when it came to me going off to college the money was not there. For some reason my mother thought I would grow up to get a nice secretarial job or work for a huge company. I had different plans and dreams and I wanted to go to college. No one in my family had ever went pass the twelfth grade, so for me to decide to go off to college, it was a huge surprise and burden on my mother.
Although my high school counselor assured her that there were grants and scholarships available for me, my mom was still very apprehensive about being stuck with a huge bill with tuition costs and it made her question me getting a higher education. I eventually convinced my mom that I would work while attending college and would try my best to pay my own way and that made things a bit easier on her.
Now that I have two teenagers of my own and one is graduating from high school in a couple of months, I definitely know how my mom was feeling. My husband and I tried to prepare ourselves for this very same transition and we knew it was coming but not this fast. It has not been that easy for my family either and money is tight around here too with the economy taking a nose dive, my husband business being up and down and other things that has happened. We did save some money for our kids education but not like we wanted to. My daughter planned on going off to beauty school and my son wants to be a video game developer. They have both decided that they wanted to have their own businesses like me and their dad and I commend them in their efforts but even if one goes off to beauty school and the other heads off to tech school, someone still has to pay those tuition bills lol.
With Steve Harvey’s Pay It Forward contest, I have nominated both of my teens because every little bit helps. On the website they have some great articles and one that I personally enjoyed was called, “Mini Moments”where it shares ways to save for your kids big education. I’ve found it to be very helpful as well. You can visit the website and download the PDF file to read all about it and don’t forget that you still have time to nominate your kid, family member or loved one for the contest too! xoxo
Please take a minute to visit www.coke.com/payitforward to nominate your teen and for complete rules and eligibility requirements. Good luck to you and your teen! Xoxo
Join the conversation online, using #CokePayItForward
The Coca-Cola company provided promotional consideration for my participation in this program.
