When my daughter wanted her first tablet, a friend of mine said he had an old one he could sell me for $50. Cool, I said, and my daughter saved up her allowance (paid for feeding the cats, as I recall) to get the money. Then, my friend said to just put the $50 in her savings account.

Oh, I said, right, we should set one of those up for her.

Once she had one, it was clear I should be adding to it every month. But, the initial nudge to get her one was important. Hopefully, having an account will make it more likely to put a little in every month? It's not everything, but it's also not nothing.

Of course, cheaper housing would help the kids more, but that has more entrenched interests opposed to it (almost every homeowner), and not even Dell has enough to overcome that.