Much of the advice and strategies you’ll be reading about in this book revolve around the short worksheet in Appendix B. My College Cash Strategy Worksheet, as I like to call it, has three sections to help you quantify your goals, create a hit list of dated action steps you need to take, and track your progress.

For this first chapter, we’ll be using portions of the first section, “Unique Costs and Resources.” Take a second to peek at it now and bookmark the page so you can flip back and forth easily. I also strongly recommend that you make a copy of the worksheet to work from (instead of writing in the book), so you can rework the numbers as your situation changes.