Every parent wants their children to get the best education possible and be successful in life. However, life is uncertain and the path to fulfilling all your desires may be a convoluted one. Hence you need to implement a sound investment strategy. With proper planning and a variety of investment options, your child will have a good journey to a valuable college degree. Follow these tips for an efficient planning for growing children.

1) Creating a financial plan and know where to end: When you are planning for your children’s education, work out an estimate of all the costs involved. Keep this estimate as a guide and start piercing together your investment plan. You will see a variety of education planning options each with its own risks and benefits and you will use it accordingly to achieve your goals.

• a. To get started, make an education saving plan in the early days. You will have money available when your child enters college. These education savings plan come with different protection benefits to the child and the parent.
• b. If you have property, it will provide rent and capital appreciation and this can be used in your child’s education. Rent money can be used to pay for your child’s tuition fees and other related expenses. And when the value of the property increases, it can be sold to obtain capital gains. When you invest your money in the property market, do a thorough research because this market will fluctuate and you may not get the selling price as anticipated.
• c. Unit Trusts and Structured Investments can also be a part of your investment planning.

2) Set up an automatic system to invest regularly: Make an action plan where your savings or investing can be made automatic. Many savings, investment linked plans and unit trust funds can be operated monthly, quarterly, half annually or annually. When you are investing regularly, you will also benefit from Dollar Cost Averaging. It is an average of highs and lows of an investment and lower the total average cost per share of the investment.

3) Reviewing the plan: When you reviewing the plan regularly, you will stay on track with your target goals. Make sure that you review it at least once in a year and with any major change in your life, such as a new child, career advancement or move to a bigger house, find ways to top up if it is not up to the mark in reaching your investment goal.

4) Top up annually or whenever you can: You can always increase your contributions annually or top up your contributions when there is an increase in your income or you get a bonus or increase in your pay. You will be able to meet your target quicker and achieve a large fund.

5) No dipping into the funds: Choose the right plan that will lock your funds for your children’s education until they are ready to go to college. You should not be able to withdraw the fund easily otherwise you will use the money for other emergencies or needs that may come up.

6) Contributions from family members: You can encourage grandparents or other relatives in your family to not to spend money in gifts but opt for a cash contribution towards their education fund instead.

7) Making a team effort: Encourage your children to do savings for their future education. While you are reviewing your investments for their education funds, you can discuss it with them so that they know how hard you are working and putting your efforts towards achieving their goals. If they want to contribute a small portion towards their education fund, appreciate it. And when they are ready to leave for university, make sure that they have learnt good money management habits so that they are able to live within their means.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 23rd, 2015 at 4:47 am and is filed under Financial planning, Investment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.