I spent several years as a professional financial planner. As a CFP (Certified Financial Planner) I guided clients through all areas of their full financial planning picture. That means that I had to help clients make very difficult choices sometimes. For example, deciding whether to save for retirement or for helping paying for children’s college education. (Save for retirement first. There are other options for paying for college. There are no other options for paying for retirement unless you want to try and live off of Social Security payments.)

The unfortunate fact of the matter is that most families simply do not have enough money to save effectively for their kid’s college education. For the most part, even financially responsible parents spend most of what they make each month. The exception are those with very high incomes, who, ironically, don’t really need to save for college because they can just pay tuition out of pocket when the time comes. However, there is a way to save for college on a limited budget by making smart personal finance decisions and letter the power of compound interest and the future propel your college savings plan forward.

How Parents Should Save For College

First, let me tell you how to NOT save for college. Do not save for college with savings bonds, Coverdell IRAs, or UTMA / UGMA accounts. And definitely, never, ever, ever, save for college using life insurance. All of these ideas are either outdated or were never a good idea. The reason your parents tell you to use a UTMA account or savings bonds or some kind of trust is, because once upon a time, that was very good strategy. However, these strategies are not the best way to save for college today.

The creation of the 529 Plan and its subsequent revisions has rendered all other forms of saving for higher education obsolete. (Coverdell IRAs still have a place if you plan to pay for private HIGH SCHOOL but are not the way to go for college savings.)

Don’t bother reading a thousand articles or books, or talking to a bunch of planner or stock brokers, just trust me on this. You want a 529 Plan. Anything negative you have ever heard about 529 plan either applies to a sub-type of plan called a “pre-paid tuition plan” which are the ones that “failed” earlier this century, or is because SOME specific 529 plans are a not very good.

See here for Which 529 Plan To Use

Don’t let the fact that some 529 plans are not good options cloud the fact that 529 plans are the best way to save for college.

Free Plan To Save Money For College

Here is my free, no-strings attached, financial plan for college savings:

(OK, there is one string, a link   Freelance Financial Writer

1. To pick the right 529 Plan find out if your state offers a tax deduction for using your home state’s plan. If so, chances are that will be your best option, unless that plan violates one of the rules below.
2. Open a 529 Plan account for your child DIRECTLY WITH THE PLAN. That is, do not buy your 529 plan through an advisor or broker. If you do, you will pay sales charges that will reduce the amount of money you are actually saving. The sale charge for investments less than $50,000 is usually very close to FIVE PERCENT (5%) or more. That means that for every $1,000 you save, you lose $50 before you invest a nickel. Unless you pay more than 5% in state income tax, the deduction is not worth the fee.
3. Setup and automatic monthly investment. People spend what they have. Set and automatic investment into the 529 plan for day after you get paid. That way, the money will be out of your checking account before you even look. Start with $25 or $50 if possible, more if you can make it work.
4. Whenever you get a raise, whether cost of living increase or otherwise, increase your automatic contribution timed with your first new paycheck. You WILL adjust your spending higher. Everyone does. However, you won’t adjust to spending money that isn’t there. If you get a $200 raise and increase your contribution by $20, your spending will adjust by $180. Otherwise, it will adjust to the full $200 and you’ll be somewhere explaining how you CAN’T cut any spending and don’t know where to find the money to save.

If you follow step 4 over the next two decades, you will eventually be saving much more than you can today, but you will still be taking advantage of what you can invest now getting the maximum amount of compound interest.

As for where to invest, choose the Moderately Aggressive or Aggressive option for kids under 10. After than, start moving more and more of the funds to more conservative options. By the time your child is 16, you should have 75% or more in a FIXED investment.

Start now, and you’ll save up a lot of money for college. It won’t be enough unless you are saving a few hundred per month or have big increases later, but it will make a big dent. And paying for half of university tuition with student loans is better than paying for all of it with student loans.

Babies are messy. The spills and accidents put stains in baby clothes that can be very hard to remove. Even parents of newborns have to content with baby formula stains, spit up stains, and most of all, poop stains. Getting stains out of baby clothes isn’t as easy as it sounds. For starters, babies have sensitive skin, so harsh laundry soaps and stain removers are out unless you want to be calling the pediatrician about a baby rash that looks really bad.

Bleach is a no-no for baby clothes too, not that it really matters since virtually all jumpers, onesies, shirts, pants, and tops made for babies have bright colors or cute patterns on them anyway.

Baby Laundry

Shortly after giving birth to a beautiful baby the mommy and daddy realize two things, that sleep is really, really, important, and that the increase in laundry volume is very disproportionate to the increase in family members. The washing machine gets a workout and the dryer does too. For the most part, though, more laundry is easily handled, especially once you realize that there is no point in folding baby clothes.

Yet, when it comes to ugly yellow stains, or brown stains, or even blue stains (don’t ask) it can challenge anyone’s parenting skills. For some reason, our usual stain stick, the Shout stain remover with the plastic brush thing on the top, seemed particularly ineffective on baby food stains. It is also not fun to try and rub a stain fighter all over the back of a onesie after a diaper blowout leaves a disgusting yellowish stain all over that awesome baby outfit Grandma bought.

Many skilled parents use a baby laundry detergent like Dreft or other pediatrician recommended laundry soap with no dyes, no perfumes, and no harsh chemicals in order to keep baby from developing a rash from his clothing or sheets. It is natural to assume that a laundry soap like that might be "weaker" than regular soaps with all of their powerful non-sensitive skin friend chemicals; so, you might be tempted to try washing baby’s clothes in "regular" laundry soap. However it turns out that isn’t the case. (Most of the stuff in laundry soap these days has less to do with getting your clothes clean than it does with smell, wrinkles, or static.)

If you are thinking of throwing a scoop of OxyClean in with the "pure" baby laundry detergent, don’t. The oxygen bleach chemicals that give it the cleaning power it has are some of the most irritating ones out there when it comes to your baby’s skin.

So, what is a parent to do? Just get over it? After all, the baby doesn’t care if her clothes are stained, and most people are too busy looking at how cute she is to notice a stain on her back. Maybe, parents should just accept that baby clothing stains are a part of life.

WHAT?!?! Accept defeat? From a STAIN?  NEVER!

Best Baby Clothes Stain Remover

The Undefeated Daddy bought just about every stain remover and stain fighter on the shelves of the grocery store and at Target. There would be no permanent yellow poop stains on his kid’s clothes.

After trying out tons of different things it turns out the best baby stain remover is Zout. It not only gets out baby food stains, baby formula stains, and spit up stains, it also works really great on those poop stains that go unnoticed while baby is in their car seat, crib, or Jump-a-roo. Best of all, it comes in a spray bottle, so it is just as easy to cover large amorphous blob areas as it is to get a single strawberry jelly drop spot.

The most important baby stain removing tip is to rinse the clothing as soon as possible. However, do NOT use hot water. Hot water actually starts setting the stain even as you try and rinse it out. Instead, start with luke-warm water, or even cold water to rinse the stain out. Whatever is left, hit it with the Zout. Don’t be afraid to really soak it. I’ve never had it cause any discoloration even on super bright clothes or sheets.

Just let it sit there in a puddle on top of the stain until you are ready to do laundry. Obviously, if you let it sit there for five or six days, it might be too late; it isn’t magic. But, if you get baby’s stained outfit into the washing machine sometime that day or the next day, you should be fine. It shouldn’t be too hard to do with baby generating enough laundry for a small load every 24 to 36 hours

When our daughter was first born, we got a Diaper Champ.  It has a big piston-type top where you drop the diaper in, and then grab the handle and turn the lid over.  The great thing about it is that means you don’t have to open it in order to put a diaper in.

Also, it doesn’t take any special (expensive) plastic bags like the Diaper Genie and assorted knock-offs do.

But, over time, either the plastic started to absorb some of the odors or the seal broke down or whatever, so we tried to replace it with another Diaper Champ.  Somewhere in between the first and second one, they redesigned it with an internal plastic ring that holds the trash bag that you put inside.  Whether it the plastic bag helped seal the old one, or what, I don’t know, but the new one never held the odors inside.  Soon the kitchen smelled and we took it back.

Recently, I found a small brushed metal trash can with a foot pedal that opens the lid.  Between the lid and the trash bag liner, it seals in even the smelliest of diaper smells.  Unfortunately, when you open it, a blast of stinky air comes out.

The solution?  Air fresheners.

Types of Air Fresheners

Most air fresheners are nothing more than perfumes that go into the air as the alcohol in them evaporates.  That means you have a sweet smell mixed with a yucky smell.  Pass.

What you actually want is not an air “freshener”, but rather an odor eliminator or odor absorber.  The key is to get a deodorizer that actually absorbs the bad smells.  While many air fresheners claim they absorb bad odors, many do not.  The key ingredient to look for is activated charcoal.

For whatever reason, activated carbon, sometimes called activated charcoal, actually absorbs malodors.  If you can find it plain, that is without a scented wax or liquid air freshener around it, it can be recharged and ready to absorb more odors just by putting it out in the sunlight.  (It has to be sunlight, not just light, and through a window doesn’t seem to work, so outside is the way to go.)

Put one on the inside of the lid that opens and closes to help neutralize diaper odor when the pail is shut.  Then, put another one on the outside of the trash can to help neutralize the blast of gross air that comes out.  If you have your diaper pail in a closet or closed in space, one on the ceiling in there would be a good idea too.  And, viola, no diaper smell leaking out and stinking up your whole house.

Finding this kind of air freshener isn’t hard, but you have to look someplace different.  Apparently, Sally Housewife wants heavily perfumed flower smell in her air purifiers, so you won’t find plain activated charcoal ones in the kitchen or household sections.  Instead, check the automotive, garage, laundry, or shoe odor control products.  It doesn’t matter what it is “for”, you can use it as long as it isn’t the kind for water-based purposes like fish tanks, aquariums, ponds, or filtering drinking water.

The most common places you’ll find it is refrigerator odor eliminators and pet odor eliminators.  Anywhere where you want to get rid of the smell 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  In those applications, putting some chemical in the air to perfume it isn’t practical or desirable.  You can also use cat litter, if you don’t mind.  Just put some inside of a cheesecloth bag to keep it from making a mess and change it every once and a while.

If you ever find a mesh bag with plain activated carbon in it, buy it and hold onto it.  When you do find them, grab 5 or 6.  You’ll end up wanting them in multiple places and they always prove a little bit tough to find, so you’ll be happy to have some on hand.

Ok, a real man doesn’t stop being a dad at the kitchen door.  Face it, sooner or later your child is going to need to eat, and what you provide shouldn’t begin and end with what comes in a jar or can.  Besides, you can hardly call yourself undefeated if you won’t even put the kitchen team on the schedule.

Dad Makes Treats

Children associate certain actions from their parents.  Sometimes, they expect some things more from Mom, and some things more from Dad.  Since you don’t want to be the guy who never provides new treats, you need to be able to make something yummy to eat.

At the same time, you aren’t looking to spend hours in the kitchen and even the “simple” things that pop into mind like apple pie, or cake, or fudge take forever to make.  You need something fast and simple.  For that, it is time to reach back into your childhood and remember Rice Krispie Treats.

Almost everybody likes Rice Krispie Treats.  Granted, not everyone will say that the “love” them, but there are very few people out there who say they actively don’t like them.  When you find someone who says that, show up with some at a 3:00pm meeting and see if they refuse to have one.  Chances are they don’t dislike them as much as they say.

How to Make Rice Krispie Treats

One of the great things about making Rice Krispie Treats is that you always have the recipe.  Assuming you are smart enough to remember to breathe in and out on a regular basis, you should probably have no trouble remembering the main ingredient in Rice Krispie Treats is Rice Krispies.  Either you have some in your pantry or you don’t.  If you don’t, a run to the store is in order.  Either way, the recipe is on the side of the box.  It couldn’t be any easier than that.

Except, there is one big thing to remember.  That recipe on the side of the box is a big fat fraud.  You see, somewhere along the line, a Kelloggs executive who ate a lot of paint chips as a kid, sat out in the sun too long, inhaled the paint fumes in his freshly painted office, and then hit his head on the corner of the coffee table.  At that moment, he had an idea.  A spectacularly stupid idea even for someone who had just been through all of that.

The REAL RICE KRISPIES TREATS recipe calls for one whole stick of butter.  The one on the side of the box calls for something like 3 tablespoons.  Why?  Well, if you remember the moron from above, he decided that they could market Rice Krispie Treats as a “low-fat” snack.  Now, if you are laughing or scoffing, then congratulations you officially have at least two brain cells.  Of course, a whole stick of butter has a lot of fat in it, so you have to cut it back to even pretend that Rice Krispie Treats are low fat.  So, they lied, and changed the recipe on the box.  The result?  Hard, crumbly, terrible, blocks of junk that neither you, your kids, or their friends will want to eat.  You’ll laugh out loud when you read on the box that they can only be stored in an airtight container for two days.  They are worthless as soon as they cool.

Now, if you actually follow common sense (“Hello?  A recipe that calls for 40 marshmallows will never ever never be considered healthy!”) and use a whole stick of butter you will get delicious soft Rice Krispie treats that will keep just fine under saran wrap for a week or so.  That is, if your family can lay off them for that long.

Otherwise, it is super easy.  Melt one WHOLE STICK of butter.  Add one bag of marshmallows and stir while they melt.  Then, turn off heat, and add six cups of Rice Krispies.  That’s it.  (Oh yeah, spread them out in a pan before they cool.  Don’t bother with wax paper or greasing your hand.  Use a plastic cooking spoon.  Some will stick, but not enough to be a problem.  I be the sticking issue is worse if you use the artificially low amount of butter.)

So, next time you head down the cereal aisle and see that box, grab it.  The regular sized small one has enough to make two batches.  Check the box for the recipe and get the rest of the ingredients.  Then, pick the day you want to be a hero and use 15 minutes to make it happen.

No one defeats your daddy!

Ok, let’s get something straight. I do not pay for brand names if it’s the same as something else. I never have. I’m not the guy that pays $300 for jeans because it has some guy from New York’s name on them because they’re no better than WAY cheaper jeans. Now, on the other hand, I’m not the guy that cheaps out on stuff either. Wranglers and Levi’s suck and the only reason you ever wore them was because your Mom bought them for you. So, do I pay $50 to $80 for a pair of jeans. You bet.

The point? Everyone tells you about Dreft. It’s this magic laundry soap that you “just have” to use for your baby’s clothes. Whatever. I don’t buy Spring Scented Extra Bleach Phony Stain Fighting Smells Like Teen Spirit Laundry Soap in the first place. I’m sure mine is just fine.

Wrongo!

Here’s the deal. Your baby will grow up into a normal child with normal tolerances for stuff. But, the day she shows up in your house from the hospital she is, well… a baby, about her skin. It is SOOOO sensitive it isn’t funny. For some reason the Dreft Laundry Soap doesn’t have whatever it is that makes a baby’s skin freak out. That part where it says “Pediatrician Recommended”? They aren’t lying. The first thing they said to me when I called about the red lines all over her body was what kind of laundry soap am I using. The next thing they said was to “Try Dreft.” Guess what? Works.

Undefeated Daddy Recommended.