Financial Goals for Children Parents Must Make

… in their lifetime

Whether you have children now or plan to have children, here are financial goals you must make for your children in their lifetimes!

In order to create the most profitable budget for this year, you must review your financial goals over your lifetime. Then, we can determine which of those goals we can accomplish this year. We covered how to maximize your income in a previous post. If you haven’t downloaded your free budget template yet, you can do so here now and create a budget for this entire year! Grab it now, so we can continue filling out the first part of the template and continue listing out all your goals. We also cover personal financial goals you must make for yourself in your lifetime in my previous post here and for your marriage here.

Your Most Important Investment

We covered A LOT of important stuff regarding setting personal financial goals here and financial goals for your marriage here. The goals we covered in those posts go hand-in-hand with the financial goals for children (present or future) which we cover here. So, if you haven’t already, I highly suggest that you review my previous posts before reading further.

Your Family

Some very important things we covered in my previous posts are the importance of investing in your physical and mental health as individuals and the health of your relationship as a couple. Prioritizing yourselves and your relationship will make you better parents! To better serve each other as a family with children, you must prioritize keeping your family relationships healthy. So, before setting the typical financial goals together regarding planning for having children and eventually paying for college, let’s set the most important and first of the financial goals for children together which is to invest in your family relationships!

To put this into actionable steps, grab your budget template, and list together, as a family, on the goals tab what you believe you need to do in order to create or keep a healthy relationship with your children. Here are some examples of what financial goals for children you can invest in for the health of your relationships:

• counseling
• scheduled family outings
• scheduled vacations
• new games for scheduled family game night
• scheduled family movie nights

Decide together, now, which goal you are going to do first and do whatever you need to do to get started on that goal. For example, you can sign up for virtual counseling now or schedule a family picnic at the park.

Your Children’s Talents

If you don’t recognize your children’s talents already, hopefully prioritizing family time helps you to begin to recognize those talents as you spend more quality time together. Sometimes your children are keen to what they like and openly talk about it. Whatever the case for your children, investing in your children’s talents or activities that feed their creativity is so essential. One of the most important financial goals for children is to invest in things that encourage them to develop talents they are born with and try out different activities to help them find their hidden talents.

As we pursue financial freedom, it can be easy to set aside things that may seem “wasteful,” financially. That’s why it’s important to prioritize feeding into your children’s talents and creativity now, so that we don’t let time pass by being so focused on paying off debt or making big purchases that your children get lost in the rat race.

To put feeding into your children’s talents and creativity into actionable steps, grab your budget template, and list together, as a family, on the goals tab the following:

• what your children’s talents are (i.e. music, art, sports, writing)
• what they like (i.e. science experiments, makeup)
• what they are interested in (i.e. new instruments, new sports)
• what they want to try (i.e. cooking, drawing)

After creating this list, decide today what you can do to begin to feed into at least one of these talents for each of your children. This could be as inexpensive as purchasing new coloring books from the dollar store to a full on investment enrolling your kids in gymnastics at a top-quality facility.

For both family time and your children’s talents, we will eventually insert all these financial goals parents must make for their children into your budget. So, be thorough with your list and we will see how to fit all these goals into your budget. I want to reiterate the same things I noted about investing in your family and your children’s talents as I noted for your marriage. Investing in your family doesn’t have to be expensive! You can invest in your family in creative ways that don’t involve spending money.

Let’s always remember that, in all the working and the getting of all the things, we need to be mindful of when those “things” begin to take priority over our family. So, when things become strained in your relationship with your children, remember to go back to what’s most important and take some time out for each other and encourage their talents, even if it costs a little money.

How to Plan, Financially, for Children

Whether you plan to have your first child or plan to have more children, here are some key financial goals for children to plan for when adding to your family. We covered the different stages of the size home you live in and the locations throughout your children’s lives and the vehicles you might provide for them in my previous post. Have your budget template ready so you can fill out the goals tab with all your notes for the following stages of your children’s lives below.

Infant to Toddler Stage

Having a newborn definitely requires some time off from work. After that precious little being comes into your life, it can be so difficult to leave them and go back to work. So, planning to stay home for as long as possible will likely become a priority for you. That means, you will have to be mindful of any benefits you may be provided for by your place of employment or state government and how long they last while maintaining your position. Also, you will have to be mindful of what you must provide out of pocket during your time off if your benefits don’t cover you over the duration of your time off. If you decide to stay home beyond what your benefits cover, you will need to have your regular expenses covered while you aren’t bringing in income. If you decide to go back to work, you must decide if you are paying relatives or day care to take care of your children between the infant to toddler stage.

Babies require a lot of stuff. I would like to argue, however, that most tend to purchase much more than they really need. I already have a quantities to keep guideline for children’s clothing in my freebie library here. I also share how to keep toy clutter under control here. These guides are super helpful for ensuring you don’t purchase more than you need. Some things you will want to research are breastfeeding, bottle-feeding, and diapering and the cost they incur.

Newborns might eventually go to college. So, investing in a 529 college plan as soon as your child is born is the best way to ensure you can pay for your child’s college tuition. We go over investments in more detail here. Whatever you can invest now will grow. So, even if you feel like you aren’t contributing much, it will still grow, and you can invest more over time. The key is to just start as soon as possible.

As you evaluate how your child does academically throughout the years, you can invest more into their 529 college plans. If your child shows early signs they might eventually enroll in an ivy league college, for example, you can decide to invest more now. If they show signs they are more talented in fields not requiring a college education, you can be less aggressive or not invest in a college savings plan at all. The amazing news announced for 2023 is that beneficiaries of 529 plans can roll over funds from their 529 accounts to Roth IRAs tax and penalty free for distributions after December 31, 2023! With the eliminated fear of being penalized for not utilizing leftover funds if your child decides against a post-secondary education or simply does not need the entire amount, it’s a win-win situation! So, if you can contribute to a 529 college savings plan, I say go for it!

The School Years

Personally, my daughter attended a public school for her elementary years and I had her in private school from middle school through her first year of college. It wasn’t easy for me, financially, as you may know from previous posts where I was not able to work for different periods of time do to my physical health. However, my daughter is my best investment and it has been totally worth having her in private school for both me and her. If I could start over, I would have had her in private school for her elementary years as well. I say all this to say that you should make this decision based on your own personal convictions. Even if you cannot afford private school, most provide financial aid. Don’t feel bad for putting your children in public school and don’t feel bad for putting them in private school or home-schooling them. You do whatever you decide works best for your children. Let’s plan for these options now so you are prepared, financially.

Elementary Stage

We went over deciding where to live when your children start school in my previous post. You might live near a great public school district where you are confident to enroll your children. Or, you might live near an excellent private school worth investing in. Or, you may have neither and decide to home school your children. Whatever the case for you, it’s a good time to review your options ahead of time and decide what you would ideally like to do for your children.

With young ones having a lot of energy to burn, enrolling your kids in sports and other after school activities can be an excellent investment. It’s great to research now what your children’s school provides or what your local community clubs offer for free or at a low cost. If your kids have special talents, you can enroll them in lessons to develop these talents (i.e. voice lessons).

Junior High Stage

As your children develop their talents, the junior high stage is a great time to invest more into these talents. If you find that any sports or activities they currently are enrolled in aren’t quite challenging them enough or helping them to develop their talents, you can enroll them into higher division sports or advanced courses. As they prepare for high school where their GPA begins to count toward college, it’s a great time to invest in additional academic materials or tutoring. But, DON’T be a tiger parent and stress your children out! Stay in tune with your child to understand what they can handle and keep them balanced. We simply want to keep these options in mind now so we can plan financially for them.

High School Stage

As your children enter the high school stage of life, all the same things you might invest in for junior high, as noted above, continue to apply in high school.

This is also when your child can do different things to earn scholarships. Your child will be required to accumulate volunteering hours. The sooner they start, the easier it will be for them to meet their requirement. The added benefit of volunteering earlier means they can volunteer more. When your child volunteers more than what is required, they have more options available for scholarships! The high school years are great time to research what scholarships are available and what is required to earn them.

Additionally, these are the years of school dances. This is when you plan for all the suits and boutonnieres and dresses and corsages and hair and makeup and dinners. You simply take the school calendars each year and note when these events occur so you can budget for them ahead of time.

On top of school dances, junior year and senior year are the college enrollment stage. This is when you will factor in test costs, college application fees, possible deposits, and college road trips.

Lastly, this is when you start to look into the costs for your child attending school locally or living on or near campus.

College Stage

This is when all that investing finally pays off. Whether you invested in 529 college plans for your kids and or you invested in their talents, this is where it all comes together. Depending on how much you have invested or what your child receives in scholarships, you might also be able to pay for living costs for your child if they move away for college.

Investing in their talents might afford your children full scholarships! If this happens for you, don’t forget to thank me for reminding you to invest in your children now. In advance, I say, “You’re welcome!”

If you invested in your children’s 529 college plans from birth, this is when you get to take advantage of the fact that you are paying a fraction of what you would have paid if this money weren’t growing interest all this time. Now, you are the parent who doesn’t have to take out the student loans and, not only pay tuition in full, but not have to pay interest that compounds as well! Again, “You’re welcome!”

If you were not financially able to invest in your children’s 529 college plans, don’t feel bad! Financial aid is available in grants and scholarships through the government based on income. Depending on where your child goes to college, this aid can cover all or some of your child’s tuition. As noted in the high school section above, that school stage in life is a great time to find scholarships to help pay for as much tuition as possible. I urge you to try your best not to take out student loans and pay as much tuition as you can as you go. If you do need to take out student loans, the great thing is I provide calculators for you to ensure you pay them off as quickly as possible with the least amount of finance charges.

Marriage Stage

Eventually, our precious babies may get married. As we raise independent, financially responsible children, they will likely want to pay for their weddings. Your son will begin to save for an engagement ring when he is ready to pop the question. And, your sons and daughters will start saving for their weddings when they are engaged. You, however, can start secretly saving before any of these milestones happen for your children. It’s a nice surprise for your children when they get to announce their engagement and you get to announce how you can help them financially!

To put these goals into actionable steps, again, grab your budget template, write down together on the goals tab all the goals you would like to accomplish for the different stages of your children’s lives as noted above. We will fit these goals into your budget which we will finish creating by the end of this month.

The Next Step

Today, we are finished with gathering our financial goals for ourselves, for our marriage, and for our children. I want you to take the time to continue reviewing all of these goals through the weekend and adding to them as you think of more. Remember, as I stated in this video below, it is important to list our lifetime financial goals so we can focus on accomplishing what we can this year. While we took this time to focus on the “why” we are creating a budget, in my next post, we will begin to go into detail about the “how” regarding accomplishing our financial goals.

Dreaming big now, even when things may be tight, sets you up for success in the future:

• One, you are in the mindset that you are working toward these goals and are, therefore, mindful about how your financial decisions today bring you closer to these goals.
• Two, you are aware of habits that have kept your finances stagnant, or even moving backward.
• Three, you are equipped to prevent debt from increasing.
• Four, you are equipped to increase your finances by cutting back on expenses and finding alternative income sources!

In order to truly know how to maximize your income and accomplish your financial goals, you must create a budget for your income now in order to use it in the most profitable way possible. So, if you haven’t downloaded your free budget template yet, you can do so here now and create a budget for this entire year!

Remember, after you create your budget for this year, I show you how it all comes together in a comprehensive lifetime budget that takes minutes a day to maintain.

In the next post, we finally begin the first step to setting up your budget. Stay tuned!

Happy Budgeting!