A sufficient savings account, a car that you own, a house you can finally call your home, and a small business to help sustain daily finances. These are some of the many goals you want to achieve, which is why you decided to pack your bags and look for opportunities overseas. Aside from these goals, surely, you want to give your kids the best education.
Apparently, sending money for tuition fee is not enough. You need to look long-term and prepare for the future because let’s face it, you can’t work overseas for the rest of your life.
This is why while you still can, you need to start saving up for your children’s education – and here’s how you can do it:
1) Establish your child’s education goals.
This is the first step you need to establish when preparing for your kid’s educational fund. Establishing goals will make it easier for you to decide how much money you will set aside for this fund and how much you need to save. In line with this, you need to consider the following factors as you establish educational goals:
- Your child’s school, preferably something you can sustain even without your overseas stint.
- Amount of tuition fee in the preferred school
Find out how much the tuition fee costs and multiply it with the number of years your child will go to school. Make sure to include inflation since tuition fee increased by at least 10 percent every year.
2) Decide how much you want to set aside for Education Fund.
Now that you know how much you need for your child’s education, it’s time to devise a strategy on how to save for this amount.
There are many ways on how you can save for your child’s Education Fund:
- Set aside a specific portion of your monthly income for tuition fee.
- Look for additional ways to earn money and save the money earned for this specific fund.
- Save the bonuses you received from work and deposit it in the Education Fund.
- Involve your child in saving such as keeping the money received from godparents. You will also be teaching your child to be financially responsible at an early age.
The bottom line is be creative to help you earn extra income. Every centavo counts when it comes to saving for your child’s education.
3) Invest your money to make it grow.
Savings will not be enough to cover the expenses for your child’s education. At this point, you need to look for ways that will help you grow your money as tuition fee and other school-related expenses increase. In that case, you need to carefully consider investment.
Here are some of your investment options:
- Education plan, preferably something that includes dividend earnings and with flexible payout options.
- Mutual Fund
- Unit Investment Trust Fund (UITF)
- Stocks
READ: Investment Options for OFWs
4) Start saving NOW.
All of these won’t be helpful if you won’t start doing it now. The earlier you start to build your child’s Education Fund, the better and higher you can save for his/her future. Don’t wait for your contract to end before you realize how important education is. Start now and you will be able to provide a better and more stable future for your child.
In line with this, don’t forget to track how much money you are saving. Tracking your progress will make it easier for you to adjust spending and investment options to ensure that your child will get the education s/he deserves.