In Which Amy Realises that Seventeen Years Isn't Very Long, After All.

[highlyeccentric]

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.

Comments

[flamearrows.livejournal.com]

If you actually want to get some sort of respectable rate of return, wait until you've got $5k and put it in some sort of managed fund. If you could invest that within 7 years or so, then by the time Keenan is at university you could give him that much just out of interest, then take the capital.

[(Anonymous)]

which is exactly what i'd do if i expected to HAVE five k anytime in the next ten years :P

[flamearrows.livejournal.com]

$5k is five to six weeks working full time. It's not really that much money.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

that was me :)

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

That's a very nice thought, and one for which Keenan will no doubt be very grateful in years to come!

You could try asking your bank if they have a special kind of account for kids. Quite often they have something that's suitable for just your kind of purpose - an account that a doting godparent can open and regularly make payments into, for the future expenses of the child's education or suchlike. I'm doing something like this for Emrys, and put €50 per month in, as well as his child benefit payments. I figure we've no idea what the world's going to be like expense-wise when he's grown up, so we might as well do something that can give him a good start no matter what his plans might be!

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

i ended up finding an online direct bank- ING- which will give halfway decent interest on repeated rolling term deposits. so now i just have to set that up :)

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

Ha, that's even a Dutch bank, if I remember correctly :D And actually, soon to be the same bank with which I have Emrys's account (when the ING/Postbank merger happens).