Tiny* attended a workshop I conducted and amongst other things, I spoke about tax free investments and how these are a better option to saving for varsity fees for our kids. At the time, her son was just 10 years old. She decided during the workshop that she wanted the tax free investment for her son. She has been contributing by debit order consistently for the past eight years. It was not an easy eight years because she is a single mom, and at some point during that time, she had to resign from her job and was self – employed for 10 months. “I was so tempted to withdraw from his investment” she recently told me. But because she is disciplined, she resisted the temptation and continued to sell whatever she could to meet her monthly expenses.

She asked for a review of her investments as she had to stop contributing during the 10 month period. This is when I saw it and I messaged her, “do you realise that your son’s investment is now at R318 024?”. We were both pleasantly surprised and below are just some key learnings for you:

• Being good with money is a decision and we can all make it. Being a single parent should not stop us from achieving great things for ourselves and our children
• Success in investments requires that we stay the course, we don’t get distracted when markets falter as they often do
• She could have easily withdrawn the funds when she was out of a job but she chose to rather stop the monthly contributions and kept the investment open and the funds continued to trade
• The best way to teach our kids about money is by example. Instead of showering him with gifts, lots of clothing, gadgets and other nice -to-haves in his teens, she chose to invest for him. She will make sure he gets this message when she finally shows him the investment when he turns 21 years old. At that time, the investment value is estimated to be around half a million
• We must be intentional in parenting our children. She is happy and proud that she managed to do this for him and cannot wait to hand over the investment to him. Such success does not happen by chance, it is well planned and executed over time

A few facts about the investment:

• Started in December 2015
• Monthly debit order between R1000 to R3 000 over the years
• Contributions received in current tax year R12 000.00
• Total payments from December 2015 – R241 314
• Total fund value R318 024

If you are ready to start investing for your children, contact us.