Build a future for your children.

Congratulations! You are a proud parent! This might be the most exciting time of your life, and quite frankly, it’s probably one of the scariest times too! This precious life that you have created is looking to you for the teaching, guidance and love that will take them to adulthood. Oh, and provide the financial support to make their dreams come true. It’s time to start thinking about how you might build a future for your children.

Here’s the dilemna

You have no idea where their dreams will take them! How can you plan for something that is 15, 20 or more years in the future? What will they need help with? Education? Their first home? Starting a business? How much will they need? What will stuff cost in that unknown future?

The truth is

You can only do as much as you are able. That might sound simplistic, however it is true. The saving that you do for your child is based on many different factors. The most important of which is staying within your abilities, and making the most of that. Too many families have taken an overambitious approach to saving for their children, only to realize that it becomes beyond their reach at some point.

Whatever approach you take towards building a future for your children, and creating future financial wealth for them, please remember that you can always increase the amount you are saving in the future. It’s a wiser choice to start with a plan that you can truly afford. If your financial situation changes down the road, you can always increase the amount of saving you are doing. Certain investment plans won’t allow you to decrease the amount that you are setting aside, and missing payments is not acceptable. Some prudent planning is necessary.

What do you really want to save for?

If it’s for education, and you are fairly positive that a post-secondary education is what you want to prepare for, then the RESP is a viable option. Please remember that is it a federal government regulated plan. That means that there are rules as to how, where, and when the money that you saved is utilized. However, there are grants available which help to make your investment grow faster. That means that you not only your own contribution, but also what the government will add to that.

Like any investment, there are risks involved.

In 2008 when the stock market fell over 30%, there were many families counting on the RESP to fund their children’s schooling. They came to the realization that not only was their growth gone, but a good part of their initial investment was gone as well.

The RESP

The RESP does have an overall investment cap that states you can never put in more than $50,000. The government grant is limited to a max of $7,200 over the life of the plan. Even with amazing investment returns, there are real limits as to how much growth there can be in this plan.

I work with insurance investments, namely segregated funds. There are guarantees built into these plans to safeguard against losing all of the investment contributions in your RESP plan.

Whole life insurance

A great option for creating future wealth for your child is a participating whole life insurance plan. Your plan will receive an annual tax free dividend from the insurance company for life. The growth within the plan can be used for absolutely anything, anywhere, anytime. This type of insurance plan grows not only in the usable equity in the plan, but also in the amount of life insurance. This might be the only life insurance plan that your child will ever need. Ever. For life. You can put basically as much into this plan as you wish. Therefore, you can see some pretty incredible growth over your child’s lifetime, and the dividends grow tax free every year.

So what is the best choice? This is where we have a conversation. What do you really want to save for? How much time is there before your child may need these savings? What will your budget allow you to contribute? Do you know about/ understand about investing? What is your risk tolerance for investments? Do you like rules, or do you prefer a plan that has no limitations as to how it’s used?

Build a future for your children

The bottom line is this; Choose an approach you feel comfortable with. Invest an amount that works for your situation, over a length of time that allows your it to grow for it’s intended purpose. Then commit to making the plan work to it’s full potential. Your child is dreaming about their future, and you can help them get there.