The beginning of term is here and most parents are striving to clear their children’s school dues. Since school fees are paid every term, which comes after three months, it is wise to consider sustainable solutions to beat the school fees blues.
The first solution to ease the school fees burden is by saving. Ideally, you should save your child’s school fees in a period of three months. If you cannot manage this, there are other alternatives.
Save through a work scheme
Saving money in a workplace scheme is good for a number of reasons. If you got a loan from your workplace savings scheme to pay school fees, the interest rate is much lower than that charged in commercial banks. Secondly, with a well-managed savings scheme, the loan is approved faster than in commercial banks.
Money rounds
You can start a money round for school fees. Get together with three or more friends so that money goes to a different member every month. You can organise it in such a way that each one in the round gets money at least three times a year. For instance, if each of you contributes sh500,000 every month with four friends, it means every three months, one will get sh2m for school fees.
Paying the school monthly
If you have three children with each paying sh500,000 per term, you could start by depositing sh350,000 every month even during the holidays. At the beginning of every term, you would have cleared a big percentage of the school dues.
Make good choices
Beating the school fees blues requires discipline. If we, as parents, do not find solutions, we will always be wandering around other people’s homes asking for school fees. Make tough choices and beat the school fees blues.
mamatendo@yahoo.com
