I’ve changed! And for the better, I think. While it’s probably pretty obvious why I redesigned The College Financial Lady, I thought I’d give you the full background anyway.

I started writing this blog 6 years ago, in January 2014. I had made a New Year’s resolution to develop a writing habit. At the time, I was getting a lot of questions from clients about planning and paying for college, so I thought I could use a blog to capture the content I was emailing people all the time anyway and meet my New Year’s resolution. Plus, my twins were about to turn 13 so we were starting to get more serious about our own college planning.

Fast forward or rewind; either way much has changed since 2014. My first post was January is FAFSA Season because in 2014, the FAFSA came out on Jan. 1. My then-7th graders are now college freshmen and I’m eating my own cooking, so to speak. (Tastes good!) One constant has remained: I’ve written 1-2 articles a week for this blog almost every week since then. According to WordPress, I’ve written 382 posts as The College Financial Lady. According to me, I’ve never made even the slightest attempt to organize these posts. That was fine when all I was doing was sending them out to clients, but now you’re here too (and I’m so glad you’re here), and maybe your friends have come along because you told them about something you read here last year (or 5 years ago) and I think they should be able to find it.

I’ve learned a lot along the way. My biggest learning is this: Making college affordable is more about the choices you make—what schools you’ll apply to, how much you’re willing to pay or to borrow—than what your EFC is. Whether or not your child does great things has far more to do with your child than their college. If you teach them the value of hard work, encourage their curiosity and creativity, value their empathy and compassion, and help them develop into good human beings and citizens of our planet, then they will be successful whatever their educational path.

I grouped the content under four main headings so that people coming here with a specific information need can find what they’re looking for, and to put some guardrails around my sometimes off-topic posts:

  • Getting Started
  • Saving & Paying
  • FAFSA
  • Worksheets and Resources

Of course, if you like the old sequential “organization” just stick on the home page here. Either way, drop me a note in the comments below and let me know what you think!

And huge thanks to the amazing Angie Herrera of Block81 for making this happen!