![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So, every year for the last three years a formidable old lady from my church has seen fit to bestow upon me a cheque for a respectable sum of money. Said funds are apparently a dividend from an investment made back in the day when she was an exiting scientist-y type of person, and they paid her godchildren through university, and, after me, they will be contributing to the education of an unknown Master's student through a scholarship fund of some sort.
This is all very nice, but a little overwhelming, since I've never done anything *for* my benefactress, and it is quite unlikely that I ever will. So, rather than develop a sense of indebtedness (leave that up to my mother) I decided that instead, one of the things I would do in my life would be to bestow fundage upon some young person or persons, as a Respectable Grownup Helping The Next Generation. Where i would *get* funds to do this is somewhat vague- in my brain, fundage just drifts in with adulthood.
Recently, my best friend and his wife had a baby boy. I don't think he was baptised with godparents, if he was baptised at all, but he's more-or-less my godson. Somewhere between a godson and a nephew, i guess. Thus, since Keenan came on the scene, it has been my vague intention to contribute in some way to his higher education- be it university, tafe, or whatever it is he chooses to do.
In the shower this morning, I realised that this period of Keenan's life may be as little as seventeen years away. Then I thought about *my* life, and, in seventeen years time, I will hopefully have a PHD and a job, but I can't see me having much more than that. And there's little space in the intervening years for a substantial injection of finances. Whereas if I were to put two hundred dollars in an investment, every year that I could afford it for the next seventeen years, I might come out with enough money to cover his textbooks/ equipment for three or four years.
It feels very strange to be looking at 'Education Savings Accounts- for parents, grandparents, relatives and friends' when I haven't finished my own undergraduate degree.
This is all very nice, but a little overwhelming, since I've never done anything *for* my benefactress, and it is quite unlikely that I ever will. So, rather than develop a sense of indebtedness (leave that up to my mother) I decided that instead, one of the things I would do in my life would be to bestow fundage upon some young person or persons, as a Respectable Grownup Helping The Next Generation. Where i would *get* funds to do this is somewhat vague- in my brain, fundage just drifts in with adulthood.
Recently, my best friend and his wife had a baby boy. I don't think he was baptised with godparents, if he was baptised at all, but he's more-or-less my godson. Somewhere between a godson and a nephew, i guess. Thus, since Keenan came on the scene, it has been my vague intention to contribute in some way to his higher education- be it university, tafe, or whatever it is he chooses to do.
In the shower this morning, I realised that this period of Keenan's life may be as little as seventeen years away. Then I thought about *my* life, and, in seventeen years time, I will hopefully have a PHD and a job, but I can't see me having much more than that. And there's little space in the intervening years for a substantial injection of finances. Whereas if I were to put two hundred dollars in an investment, every year that I could afford it for the next seventeen years, I might come out with enough money to cover his textbooks/ equipment for three or four years.
It feels very strange to be looking at 'Education Savings Accounts- for parents, grandparents, relatives and friends' when I haven't finished my own undergraduate degree.