As with most things in life, if you want to achieve something, you need a plan. This is true when thinking about ensuring your kids grow up financially healthy and wealthy. In this blog, I have set out a simple Ten-Year Investment Plan for you and your kids to follow so you can achieve this goal.
To help go through this plan, I’m going to use an example child. We’ll call her Jessie. She’s 8 years old and her parents give her £5 per week in pocket money and she gets around £50 per year from relatives on special occasions.
This means in total that she receives just over £300 per year.
Jessie has read the book Grandpa's Fortune Fables with her parents so is super excited about looking after her money and making it grow. To make sure this happens, Jessie and her parents agree on a Ten-year Investment Plan.
READ MORE: If you want to learn more about investing then I suggest you read my blog 'How to teach your kids about the Stock Market' first.
The Ten-Year Investment Plan For Kids
The Plan consists of three steps:
Step 1: Jessie and her parents agree to pay £60 each year into an investment account for the next ten years.
Remember that Jessie gets £5 per week pocket money, so she is essentially agreeing to put just under £1.20 per week of that pocket money away for the long term.
She still has most of her pocket money left, as well as all the money she gets from friends and family on special occasions. So, during the year she still has around £240 out of the £300 to spend.
It’s important here that Jessie is paying that £60 over each year herself so that she has a real sense of ownership and achievement from practically being part of the Ten-Year Investment Plan.
Step 2: Jessie’s parents open an investment account in her name.
Her parents opened up an investment account in her name. As they are in the UK, they open a tax-free Junior Stock and Shares ISA with Vanguard as they are one of the largest investment companies and have low fees.
Once the investment account is open, they set up an automatic transfer of £10 each month (a total of £120 each year, which is £60 from Jessie and £60 from her parents).
Jessie's parents choose to invest the money in a global, low-cost investment fund meaning the money will be invested in thousands of companies from around the world. In this case, Jessie's parents picked the Vanguard FTSE All Cap Index Fund.
Jessie’s parents set it up so the £10 is automatically added to Jessie's account each month so they definitely stick to the Plan.
Side note: Jessie's friend, Abbie, has something similar. However, her parents opened an investment account in their own name. In their account, they have one investment fund which is earmarked as Abbie's investments and will transfer the money to her when they believe she is old enough.
You can learn more about how to set up a simple investment account using our free investment guide here.
Step 3: Jessie's parents show her the investments over time.
Jessie and her parents put a 3-month reminder into their phones to talk about how the investments are doing.
Whilst Jessie knows from the Mr Lazy story in Grandpa's Fortune Fables (which you can read here) that the best course of action when investing is to ‘do nothing’, she wants to experience the short-term bumps when investing in the stock market.
I’ll come to why this step is so important shortly.
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The Benefits of the Ten-Year Investment Plan
There are two main benefits of this Ten-Year Plan.
One: Financial Monetary Benefit
Over the long-term, investing in the stock market is expected to return about 7% per year on average (to be clear, this is a long-term average, which means in some years it may be much higher, others much lower).
By the time Jessie is 18 years old, her £60 for ten years (£600 in total) is expected to be worth around £830. Add in the £60 her parents also invested for her which doubles the amount to £1,660 at 18 years old.
Now, that amount is not game-changing but that’s a great start. Especially, if Jessie keeps that money in the investment account for a further 50 years years as that £1,660 could increase to a whooping £52,000 due to the power of Compound Interest (assuming no extra money is invested after she turns 18 and an average return of 7% per year). Again, not bad for Jessie’s £600 initial investment amount.
Whilst these numbers are great, they are not the main purpose of the 10-year Investment Plan. I know a lot of people who have saved a lot of money for their kids but their kids have not gone on to be financially healthy and wealthy (Read: Why I feel sorry for the Rich Kids). It’s the next part which is even more important.
Two: Financial Education Benefit
The most valuable part of the 10-Year Investment Plan is the ‘education’ Jessie obtains over those 10 years.
Over that 10-year commitment period, she would learn:
Small amounts add up over time
She experienced the stock market bumps over the years but the best action was not to worry and carry on - there's nothing to be scared of.
Once an investment is set up, there’s nothing else to do really - it’s easy to manage!
The more you invest, the more you get out of it.
This experience puts Jessie ahead of so many people (both adults and children) as she’s learned about investing and, more importantly, experienced investing in the stock market. So many adults today don't invest as they believe it is scary, complex, hard work or that you need a lot of money. This plan shows your kids that's not the case and gives them such an advantage in life.
This means Jessie is much more likely to continue to invest in the stock market as an adult and grow her wealth sustainably as she starts to earn and save more.
If your kids are like mine, once they know they have an investment account, they will want to start putting more of their savings away to see them grow.
In the short term, they might not see the benefit but I have no doubt they will thank you later. Just like the illustration below.
Please do your own research about specific investment funds This is not financial advice.
SPECIAL DEAL: Until the end of the year, our popular 'Raising Wealthy Kids Online Course' is now only $5 (£4). Sign up here
Summary
Make this commitment with your kids to do the 10-Year Investment Plan. It might take some effort now but will be worth it to see your kids financially healthy when they become adults.
Starting today:
Agree with your kids that you will both put (at least) £50 a year into an investment account for the next 10 years
Consider setting up a tax-efficient investment account for your kids (see guide for help)
Make sure you show your kids the investment account over time so they may see it growing (and the bumps along the way)
If you follow these steps, not only will your kids have money saved to give them a financial head start, they will gain a powerful financial education which allows them to become financially healthy and wealthy.
Remember if your kids aren’t showing any interest in this topic, get them a copy of Grandpa's Fortune Fables.
“I bought a copy for my 10 year old niece and she's already asking questions about investing, whereas she wasn't at all interested before.” Amazon customer.
If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at will@bluetreesavings.com. I’m more than happy to help. I'd also love to hear put the 10-Year Investment Plan into action.
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Thanks for reading and don't forget to subscribe.
Will
Useful links mentioned in the blog:
How to teach kids about the stock market
Mr Lazy's Trees (a story about why you should 'do nothing' once invested)
P.S. Grandpa's Fortune Fables helps kids learn all about looking after their money and investing. Get a copy for your kids, nieces/nephews, grandchildren, schools and friends so more kids grow up looking after their money. Available at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.
