The biggest cost account for any family isn’t their home mortgage or car loan. It’s the cost of raising their children in an increasingly expensive world. The basics alone like food and clothes can already cost hundreds of dollars a month without having to add education and medical expenses. There are also unforeseen emergencies that can drain the savings account almost immediately.

Fortunately, there are a few ways to cut down on other expenses in order to divert funds towards raising children. The home’s mortgage should be the top priority here. Instead of going for the usual, 30- year term, parents can try paying down the loan faster in order to decrease the interest expense in the long run. This can be done by either paying twice per month, or increasing the monthly fee. This might seem expensive now, but once the mortgage has been paid off, there’ll be plenty of disposable income for the family.

There’s also a great savings account for the children’s future education called the Registered Education Saving Plan or RESP. The family should pay regularly towards this account so that it grows substantially over the next decade. This should be treated with some conservatism however as some families commit the mistake of putting all their eggs in this basket, leaving their other financial priorities without a source of income.

The parents themselves should also look towards their future welfare by investing in a pension fund. The Registered Retirement saving Plan is the basic package for all employees, but this should be treated as a starting point in learning more about future savings plans. As with all the other investments out there, some other enterprising company will be able to offer more profit for a reduced cost.

Is it almost time for the sweltering summer we all love? Well, if you are like me, you really don’t enjoy the heat, but you also might not enjoy paying an arm and a leg just to keep cool. So I have devised six tips that you can use to keep cool over the summer.

Cooling off can be very easy with a cool washcloth on the back of your neck. This trick will cool your entire body off quickly, once the cloth dries out, just wet it again.

Installing a window air conditioning unit can be a great way of cooling the house off in an energy efficient way. This might be a bit costly upfront, but it tends to be much cheaper to cool just one room as opposed to your entire house.

Cooling down at night is much easier if you wear a pair of wet socks to bed with a fan pointed at them. The evaporation cools your entire body down and keeps you cool.

A fan relay is an inventive way of keeping cool air circulating. You can blow cool air from one side of the house to another using a number of fans.

Cooking can generate a great deal of heat, one great way to keep that out of your house is to cook outside on the grill, or eat a salad. If you have to cook inside, you should consider blocking the kitchen with a blanket to prevent the spread of heat.

How do you keep cool without burning money?