Education fund....II

When you are married, it is highly likely that you will have children, sooner or later. Make no mistake about it as having children is important and can be a source of pride and joy. My life changed significantly after the birth of my princess way back in 2007. Honestly speaking, I would say, I'm a better man now as compared to what I was before. Hehehehe....

Anyway, after the birth of my daughter, I was looking for a product, be it insurance, investment or education fund for my daughter. I realized that, as parents, I have the biggest responsibility in ensuring that she is well taken care off (in terms of her future education and of course her general well being). Hence, after meeting and talking to few insurance agents, I decided to go with Prudential. So for the time being, all of kecik's insurance, medical and investments fund are currently 'managed' by them.

She was admitted to the hospital 3 times for the last 2 years and I thank Allah for helping me realizing how important it is to have medical insurance for your child. Of course, I'm a bit lucky in the sense that wifey is a government servant and we could choose to send kecik to the govt hospital. Instead, we sent her to a private hospital and with all the medical coverage that she had, I only had to pay a few hundred for a bill that came up to about RM4k. These incident helped me to realize how important it is to have a medical coverage, not only for your child but for yourself as well. Hence, I would certainly advice to everyone, pls get a medical coverage for your children......You won't know when you need it, but when the time comes, you'll be glad that you took the initiative to do it.....

Anyway, life doesn't stop there...unfortunately. You'll need to work hard and smart for the next 20 or 30 years or maybe the rest of your life to ensure that your children gets sufficient and reasonable education. Next to purchasing a house or a home, I would think that setting up an education fund will have to be a priority. Of course, as parents, we want to have the best facilities to be given to our children. We want them go to the best school, mix around with good & reasonable people and for some, we wanna send them to study abroad. Like it or not, all of these will cost money. So...the question is, how are we going to do that if we can't afford? or to make it worse, we did not make an effort to even think about our children's education fund....

I would like to think that giving 'em the best education possible is the most important thing that you can ever 'give' to your child. Not money or even properties but education.

Hence, it is always good to have an education fund. Just like saving 30% of your monthly income to your Savings Account, you may have to put aside maybe 10% of your income for the education fund. The key is, if you have yet to start in setting up any funds for your children, it is always not to late. Start now.

ASB is always an option. Hehehe. If you ask me, I've set up a a different fund for Kecik in PM and I try to put RM200 every month and hope to do it continously for the next couple of years. I do have an option of investing a lump sum of RM10k now and just leave it be in the fund for the next 14 years. If the calculations are correct, and assuming a 12% int rate, she will have about RM50k in her fund. That's quite alright in my opinion. At least, at the back of my mind, I know that what ever happens, there will be some money for her when she turns 18. It takes away some of the headache (I hope).............Having said that, it'll be great if you children are rewarded with education scholarships from the govt. That will lessen your financial burden significantly.

Anyway, I don't wanna be too technical but believe me when I said, through the effects of compounding, a small sum of money that you save each month, can and will grow into a significant amount in the future. As always, start small and start now. RM50 pun jalan..........:p

Have a nice day..........