Can anyone offer some advice on the best way to start a savings plan for my children? I have two kids aged 13 and 10. What do I need to be doing now to ensure by the time they're 18, they'll have a solid baseline of savings to get them started?

Check this out

https://www.moneysmart.gov.au/managing-your-money/saving/saving-for-your-childrens-education

Justin,

Firstly i should say well done to you for thinking about this for your kids. With increasing demands and costs these days it is so important to have a head start.

I would highly encourage you to speak to an adviser because by you helping your kids to invest and save, ultimately this is surplus cash flow from you. There might be other ways as well to consider too.

The big risk with a goal is not achieving it so it will also be important to define what you want from this exercise and an adviser should be able to do this.

Hope that helps.

Hi Justin

Great question – the best way I believe we can help our kids is to develop plans where savings becomes a habit.

One way to do that is to encourage the kids to do chores around the house so they can earn some pocket money. If the plan was that they could only spend 50% of what they earn and the other 50% had to go into a savings account it may:

· encourage them to help out more around the house.
· (of the 50% of the money they can spend) – encourage them to save more money until they find something they really wanted to buy
· (of the 50% of the money they can spend) – see them become a little excited about the money growing in their savings and want to transfer more money into their savings account
· teach them the value of money by only being able to buy things when they have the cash.
· encourage them to make saving a habit

I hope this helps. I’d love to hear if this or any other plan you put in place, starts to help them save

Best wishes

Paul