For most of my life I’ve been a bit of a dreamer with an entrepreneurial streak here and there. Those two attributes seemingly go together quite well, but unfortunately in my case they turned me into a great “starter,” and a lousy “finisher.” I was great at starting up business ideas, weight loss goals, educational goals, etc., but I rarely had the perseverance to see it all the way through.

That changed in the winter of 2000 when my daughter was born. Becoming a father made me reflect on the things I wanted for her life, and made me realize the things I would need to change about my own life to get her, and the rest of my family, to our goals. For instance, a couple years earlier I had given up on my personal dream to obtain a college degree. I attended college right of high school and selected pre-medicine as my intended major. I always wanted to be a doctor, but never really reflected on whether or not that was my true passion. After completing nearly two years of school I got burned out. A death in my family, and a love interest took me home and I began to work with the dream of finishing school quickly fading.

My daughter’s birth inspired me to return to the classroom in the summer of 2000, changing majors to computer information systems in the business school. For the next five years I toiled away attending night classes after working full time during the day. I only saw my wife and daughter on weekends and during a quick lunch and dinner at home. It was a grueling schedule, one that tested my relationship with my wife. Without her support I never could have done it. Along the way I learned a lot about myself. I learned what it took to see a dream through to the finish line. Since finishing up that degree I’ve applied these steps to other areas of my life with success.

• Write down your goal. Dreaming up goals in your head is great, but putting them down in writing creates sort of a contract with yourself. I wrote down my New Year’s Resolution around Y2K as “I will return to the classroom this year and successfully complete two semesters of school towards a business degree.”

• Plan out the steps required to reach your goal. I remember about half way through my degree I felt like giving up. I visited a counselor and asked for an updated list of all the courses I would need to finish my course of study. I hung that list up over my desk and struck them off one by one each semester. This served as sort of a visual road map for where I was headed, and what stood in the way from me accomplishing my goal.

• Reflect on what you have already accomplished. It’s easy to get discouraged when chasing a dream. I’ve found that the longer it takes to accomplish something the easier it is to become demoralized. That’s because the goal line seems so far away and we forget how far we have come. Take time to recognize your efforts. If you have $30,000 worth of debt to pay off and are barely half way there it can seem overwhelming. Instead of looking ahead to the remaining $16,000 left to pay, recognize that you have eliminated $14,000 of debt from your life. You have most likely improved your debt-income ratio, your FICO score, and your personal net worth.

• Never completely lose sight of your dream. Imagine you are a private investigator tailing someone for a client. At times it might be necessary to drop back a little and put some distance between you and a target, but you never completely lose sight of them. This is the approach I take towards following my dreams. Sometimes you have to slow down when life gets in the way. Take a semester off from school. Take a couple “mental health” days away from your job. If you feel yourself burning out it’s usually a good time to take a small break, but never a permanent one. Great finishers never completely lose sight of their dreams.

This is the sixth article in Frugal Dad’s week-long series, The 7-Day Turnaround: One Week to Change Your Family’s Financial Destiny. Each day brings a new step to implement and help you get control of your finances.

One of the most valuable gifts we can give our children is the gift of education. Used properly our kids can lead successful lives long after we are gone. I am not one of those that believes a college degree is an automatic way to wealth. What you do with your education is far more important than the degree hanging on your wall. Having said that, if you are in the position to help your children complete their education it will help them immensely because they won’t owe Sallie Mae two years of their first salary earned out of school. Too many new graduates are saddled with huge student loan debt, stifling their financial productivity in those precious early years after graduation.

Start early. Like any type of investing, the key is to start early. College tuition continues to rise at a staggering rate, and by the time your newborn heads off to school it may costs as much as your mortgage, in today’s dollars. The only way to beat that pace, other than hitting the lottery, is to get an early start and take advantage of 18 years of compounding growth.

Take advantage of tax-free savings vehicles. The government has made the job a little easier these days by offering two outstanding tax-free savings plans for college savings. Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), sometimes referred to as an Education IRA, may be opened at nearly all brokerages. Unfortunately, you can only contribute up to $2,000 a year for junior, but the earnings do grow tax free. So if that $36,000 in contributions from birth to age eighteen grows to $100,000 you can withdraw 100% of the account balance tax free, as long as it is used for educational expenses.

Education Savings Accounts may provide adequate savings for your child, but in case they get accepted to attend an ivy league school it might also be a good idea to invest in a 529 College Savings Plan. 529 plans are sponsored at the state level, and many states offer tax deductions for contributions made to your in-state plan. If your state’s plan is lousy, don’t invest just for the tax deduction. You are able to invest in plans managed in other states, you just simply don’t get a tax deduction on your state income taxes. Saving for College has a good 529 plan overview that lists all the state plans.

Financial aid is still available. Neither type of college savings plan are considered student assets in the eyes of federal financial aid providers, and therefore will not significantly reduce your child’s eligibility to receive federal financial aid. However, since most needs-based scholarships are offered at the individual school level the schools may have different rules on how assets are treated.

Chart your own course. Regardless of savings vehicle you choose be sure to select your own investments. Some of the best 529 plans offer a wide range of investment options in top mutual fund brokerages such as Vanguard or TIAA-Cref. Others offer only “managed allocation” options based on when your child plans to attend college. The plan administrator may not have the same tolerance for risk as you, and move your child’s savings balance to more conservative options too early.

What if my son or daughter decides to take a different path? If your child decides not to attend college you may assign another family member as beneficiary, which could be a nice gift for a brother, sister, or favorite niece or nephew. If you have a small family with no other beneficiaries available you can always cash out the savings and pay a 10% penalty, in addition to your ordinary income tax rate.

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My college matriculation was interrupted nearly half way through an undergraduate degree program by a death in our family, and a desire to return to my hometown to be closer to relatives. After taking time off to get married, start a job, and start a family, I decided to return to the classroom to continue my undergraduate degree program.

I recognized that without a degree my career opportunities would be somewhat limited in the field I was working, and a college degree was a personal goal I wasn’t willing to give up on just yet. The traditional classroom experience was not for me. There I was, a 25 year-old guy surrounded by 19 year-old sophomores. It was tough to find much in common when the general discussions were who was having a party that weekend, and which sorority had the cutest girls. I wondered to myself how many parents would pull the tuition payments if they knew what these guys were really doing here.

I also missed my family terribly. My work schedule was a traditional 8:00-5:00, but I had classes four nights a week from 6:00-10:00. Except for a quick dinner break, I didn’t see my wife and daughter more than half an hour during the week. I began to look at online degree programs and enrolled in a 100% online program.

Discipline Required

Online degree programs require a ton of self-discipline. With no classes requiring your attendance, and no professors spoon-feeding notes for an exam, it was up to you to progress through the syllabus and meet required deadlines. I found myself blocking off Sunday afternoons as “study days,” and they usually took place at the nearest Barnes and Noble or Starbucks store. If I stayed around the house it was too tempting to find an NFL game on, or play outside with my daughter.

Online Degree Costs

Online degree programs are usually more expensive than traditional, on-campus programs. My tuition ran about $1,500 a semester and the online program had five semesters a year (including a “mini-semester” during the summer). The company I worked for pulled the plug on tuition reimbursements due to their own financial struggles. Since I didn’t have $7,000 lying around, plus textbooks, much of the annual expense went on my Visa card. In retrospect, it was this accumulation of debt that caused much of my financial troubles, but at the time I was so focused on finishing school it was a hit I was willing to take.

Degrees, in general, are an important element to career success, but it is the ability to apply knowledge that helps climb the corporate ladder. Our society has bought into the false notion that once you obtain a degree a door magically opens to a successful career with big money and lots of perks. The reality is that employers are looking for people who can apply knowledge in the workplace. I attribute about 30% of my success to my degree; the remaining 70% has come from a strong work ethic and the ability to get along with people. Unfortunately, these aren’t things that can be learned in a classroom.

If you are continuing your education then we have online degree programs to choose from.  Our online degree is the perfect option in continuing your education.  You have come to the right place if you need an online MBA and more.