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FINANCING YOUR FAMILY'S FUTURE 265
Normally, a child enters
college today at the
age of eighteen years.
That means that at that
age you will be called
upon to pay out six or
seven hundred dollars,
and an equal amount for
each of the three years
that follow. Say, for
convenience of computation,
the time at which
you would require
twenty-five hundred or
three thousand dollars
would be when the child
is twenty years old.
From five to seven
dollars a month, placed
at the credit of the child
from the time it is a day
old will give something
like the required amount
at the end of twenty
years. If instead of permitting
the money to
remain in the savings
bank, it is judiciously invested
in bonds paying five per cent, you
will have accumulated the necessary
amount at the time it is needed.
Now how about a permanent home?
In considering his family's financial
future, every man always has in some
recess of his mind an idea for a house
of his own. In time of financial stress,
or in his old age, he wants a place to
shelter him; where the rent collector
cannot intrude. Some hope to do a
double turn in one stroke—to make an
investment, as well as to provide a secure
harbor in stormy weather. Land or
house bought in this fashion should,
how r ever, never be regarded as an investment.
The value of a certain bit of
property depends in large measure
upon economic conditions and upon the
whims of the neighbors. A house that
is worth twenty thousand dollars when
built, may be worth but half that sum
ten years later. Stores or factories or
apartment buildings next door may have
A Mao's Personal Capital Is Himself
ruined the original house
so that it can neither be
sold nor rented at a
profit—even though it
has been maintained in
perfect condition. The
rapid change in real
properties in such cities
as Cleveland, Omaha,
Denver, Chicago, San
Francisco, and even the
more staid communities
of the East attests to the
truth of this statement.
Not infrequently a house
that cost ten thousand
dollars to build and that
should rent for sixty
dollars a month cannot
find a buyer at anything
more than salvage
value; or a renter for
much more than enough
to pay the taxes.
However, in spite of
all this, many persons
wish to own a home. It
gives them a sense of
comfortable security. Again, conditions
may change so that the value of the
property is greatly enhanced. In many
cases it encourages cheerful saving
where such saving might otherwise seem
irksome.
If it be decided then that the ownership
of a house is advisable or desirable
one should go to a building or loan association
or to an individual who is interested
in developing new building sections.
For from fifteen hundred to three
thousand dollars you should be able to
get a piece of land fifty by seventy-five
feet or larger. If you have in mind the
idea of plenty of open space and plenty
of fresh air for the children and a vegetable
garden or chicken yard, you may
want as much land as an acre. In any
event, you will doubtless wash to select
a location readily accessible where the
comforts of plumbing and gas or electric
lighting are available and where the