Planning for the kids education funding

Recently I met a few people who wanted to start their children's education funding program. So I asked them how old their kids were and almost all did not answer "newborn" baby. Why I want to highlight this is because if your kids is already one year old, what did you do for the last one year for him or her.

It's funny to me sometimes to think that we all read and know about the importance of education, we also know that the prices are not coming down, so what more does it take to just get started on the savings. My guess is, it's a long way to go right! 18 to 20 years from now is a long time ... are you sure. Don't get caught.

I got this idea from one of the books I read. The way to plan for the long term, is to not call it long term ... but rather a few short months. For example, for a 5 year plan, call it your 60 short months plan. If you start doing this and implemented it on paper ... i can bet you see results.

When I implemented this idea, I got sick to the stomach to realize how much time I have wasted. More like, how many years that is. You see, once you quantify it into monthly blocks, you can see it very clearly and it stares right back at you, if you don't do anything.

So now for me planning has become easy. Well, at least the planning part ... implementation is another skill to be mastered. So back to the question of wanting to start that education or college fund for the kids. Let's just take my examples this time round.

I've got 3 kids, Amira is 10, Amir is 7 and the last girl, Aldelia is 5. Now lets say we plan for Amira. She's got another 8 to 9 years before she comes to me and ask for that money I promised for her to go to college. I sure am going to feel pressured and I want to be able to tell her .... ok darling.

So say 8 years, still quite a long time. Now you break it to months ... it's only 96 short months. Oh man! Now with that you draw up in an excel spreadsheet and line up the boxed and put it at a visible place. Every month that you put aside the money, you can cross off the box. Now you can not only see it, but feel how you are progressing each month. Believe me it is effective.

Financial planning may seem like a complex subject with the stock market, unpredictable returns, complex products and so on. But the bottom line is this my friends ..... it's not how much you earn, it's how much you put aside for the later use of those money. That's basically the basics. Then we can talk about the complex structures and returns.

I do hope all of you will get started with this simple idea.

Do you see more months or more money at the end of the months.