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7 star strategies for your child's future

How can you put a price on the expression of pure bliss on your four-year-old's face

as she enjoys an ice-cream? When your 17-year-old whoops on hearing the news that

he has secured admission to his dream college, would your brain tick away at the

amount of money this is going to cost you?

These are non-questions to any parent. Parental love is unconditional and largely

unaccountable. It's heartless and clinical to count your child as a cost centre, and we

are not suggesting you do that.

Understanding expenses does not imply condemning them. On the contrary, it is only a

first step towards gaining an advantage over them. In fact, if you do manage to chip

away at the warm, fuzzy feeling of pride and accomplishment and examine the costs

of raising a child, you would be able to do a far better job of being the provider.

The dichotomy of spending on your children is a conflict between the present and the

future. Should you cave in and buy the Rs 25,000 Playstation 3 that your son has

been nagging you for? Will it come from the money you have been saving for his

graduation? Will that Barbie-themed Rs 50,000 party you threw on your daughter's

birthday be the reason she will have to do her hotel management in Goa instead of

Geneva? The only way to solve these dilemmas is to plan ahead and start investing.

Now.

Two big-ticket costs that all parents have to provide for fall under the heads

education and marriage. Post-graduate education is expensive, and in this globalised

world, if you want to give your child the advantage of an international education,

multiply the cost by 10 times, often even more. A grand celebration to mark your

child's wedding is a great Indian dream and something that all parents would like to

put some money away for.

1. Second baby

Most couples can afford one child and want to do the best for him or her. As financial

decisions go, the second child is usually one that swings the balances. The thought of

having to keep away double the amount of what you need for a child can be daunting.

Often, when the kids are young, one plus one does not add up to two - you could

re-use and recycle and keep your expenses slightly lower. But, as they grow older,

two children can be a real strain on finances. Guitar lessons for one, football coaching

for the other, science tuitions for one and mathematics for the other can add up to a

tidy sum every month.

A second child had always featured in Jayant Bhadauria and Kamalika Nandi's life

plans. It's just that they did not really have the time to have one. Jayant works in a

multinational software company in Mumbai and Kamalika looks after marketing for an

outsourcing company.

Between work, their travelling schedules and looking after Kamini, their four-year-old

daughter, the second child remained something to be done sometime in the future.

Which was why, in September, when Kamalika discovered she was pregnant, for a

minute she didn't know whether to be happy or sad.

"Of course, money was not the first thing I thought about," says Kamalika. "Once the

news sank in, I did realise that we would have to start looking at our expenses. So

far, if I have seen something and liked it, I have ended up buying it if I felt the price

was fair. Now, I feel, there would be a little bit of a compromise there. I do want the

best for my kids, but that does not necessarily mean the most expensive."


7 star strategies for your child's future

The baby is due in May and, for now, they are figuring out the expenses related to

having him - delivery and hospitalisation are just two of the heads. A normal delivery

in a reasonably good hospital costs about Rs 35,000. If there are complications, the

fee could be substantially higher. Kamalika reckons their monthly expenditure would

increase by at least Rs 7,000 for the first year of the new baby.

A substantial portion of the large expenses they incurred for Kamini would not have to

be repeated. Expensive baby paraphernalia like the cot, stroller, rocker and high chair

can be reused for the second baby.

Jayant has a couple of insurance policies. The rest of his investments are all in equity.

He has an employee stock option in his company. Besides this, he has also opted to

buy the equity of his employer, listed in the US, with a certain percentage of his

salary every month.

The rest of his portfolio is in various Indian companies. While equity investment is the

ideal route to create wealth for his young family, Jayant should also look at

diversifying his portfolio. A major chunk of his money is invested in one stock - that of

his employer.

Jayant is also evaluating a couple of child policies from insurance companies. He

wants to use these as vehicles to save for his kids' higher education and marriages.

He is confident that as the expenses of the kids increase, so wi

I present to you - Part one of my short story "An Ex-Mas Story":


Jim Whelan never felt so miserable as he did around Christmas time. His feeling of malaise started with the melancholy ache of having to bid farewell to summer’s warmth for the gradual chill of autumn. He was given a small respite as he took comfort in the delightfully wicked celebration of Halloween. As the fake blood, cob webs and foam rubber body parts were packed away he soon felt the cold embrace of depression stealing in as silently and as ominously as a dense fog rolling over a harbor.

He could not quite pin-point exactly when the holidays put him in such a foul mood. He supposed it was a gradual transformation that took him from the young boy who genuinely looked forward to the ‘season of giving’ to the 29 year old who viewed the holiday season with a feeling of dread.

While growing up, Jim’s family did not have a lot of money. His father lost his job when the steel mills closed their doors for good, and he took to commercial roofing to support his young family. It was a lousy job that paid less than the mill, but more than the other offers he could get in a job market saturated with hundreds of guys just like him. The job took him away from home for weeks or months at a time; sleeping in motel rooms while his son’s childhood steadily slipped away. The only thing that was worse than being away from home was staying home. The start of winter meant the end of jobs for the roofing company. Eventually he would be laid off; having to survive on unemployment benefits and what little money Jim’s mother made from cutting hair. It was at the time when the Whelan family was at its leanest that the Christmas season kicked off.

Jim’s parents were barely making ends meet, trying desperately to scrounge up enough money to even have a Christmas. All the while, the popular holiday stories all told children that good behavior was magically rewarded by shiny new toys, while bad behavior resulted in being passed over or given lumps of coal in punishment. Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Clause, and he’s a big fat red bastard who puts those parents doing the best they can do to keep food in the pantry and a roof over their heads, into an unenviable position.

How does one explain to a child why even though they have been very good, Santa was only able to bring them a few inexpensive toys and some chocolate that tasted like wax. Meanwhile, the mean little boy down the block from the rude family with the nice car, gets a brand new bike? How does one comfort a child who is teased at school because most of his classmates got more gifts or more expensive gifts?

To the best of his memory, Jim’s parents never fought about money in front him. Nor did his brother have any recollection of seeing any bitterness. Looking back, he felt his parents did a wonderful job of juggling the expectations fueled by Christmas propaganda, and the reality of their check book. They did their best to make the time not about the presents, but about being with family and reflecting on the good things they did have in their lives.

As he grew older, he began to realize the struggles that his parents went through, and he was ashamed of his childhood greed. With this realization, Christmas became less of a holiday and into a disgusting “freak show” where the main attraction were poor souls forced to buy the love of their family through expensive trinkets.

Christmas tells these poor wretches that if they do not get their child the newest, best, and most expensive new distraction on the market, that they are horrible parents. It whispers in the ear of the husband that he will lose the admiration and respect of his spouse if he buys her anything less than the diamond from the exclusive jewelry galleria. The Spirit of Christmas is a grim specter, disguised in the robes of good cheer smiling in your face, telling you that you need to be jolly. All the while, smoothly cutting you to bleed you dry.

Jim was jostled from these grim thoughts, as a morbidly obese woman wearing sweatpants with the word “foxy” stretched across her immense bottom, pushed her way past him in the isle of the Dollar Mart. He had been standing in front of the bath soaps and lotions packaged as gift baskets for the holidays. Looking down into his hand basket, he considered the meager offerings it contained and sighed. A bad financial year had left him shopping for Christmas gifts at a ‘everything is a dollar’ store.

He was not quite sure what ‘body butter’ is, but he felt slightly dirty for considering it as a gift for his mother. He had the feeling that, at best, he could find a creative way to make some inexpensive, yet unique, gifts. At worst, everyone was going to get a holiday themed mug filled with a few assorted herbal tea bags and a handful of candy.

He knew his family did not expect anything from him for Christmas. In fact, they were hurting worse than he was.