Leaving an Inheritance for Your Children

A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children

It is every parent’s duty to leave an inheritance for their children and even their grandchildren, it does not matter if you are in a good paying job or not, every parent can actually leave an inheritance behind for their children with the possible inheritances mention below. It is not uncommon to still see many parent leaving debts for their children instead of inheritances.

Without the support from parent, the children are likely to be confronted with a lot of difficulties; from little or no property wealth to tiny pension, high unemployment rate to growing cost of living. By leaving some inheritances behind for the children, will give them a big advantage in life.

Depending on the parent jobs; they may simply not be in a position to leave large quantities of physical wealth to our children. However, there are always some things every parent can leave for their children. Listed below are some of the possible inheritances any parent can leave for their children.

Open an interest bearing account (money market fund account): This is one of the most importance inheritances any parent can give to their children and grandchildren; as soon as the child is born, the parents should open an interest bearing account such as the money market fund account.

It is funny to still see parents spending all the money realiSed from good will of people visiting the new born child. Parent can leave inheritance to their children by planning their financial future through opening a money market fund account.

This is a very useful investment option for parents, who are looking to save for their children’s future or towards their university education.

Parents can start saving for their children as soon as they are given birth to, the parents can save for their children university education or even for a startup capital when the children want to start a business.

Education fund account inheritance: The question every parent should ask themselves is,” will their children be able to obtain a university education if they lose our job or they are no longer with them on earth? If their answer is No; then they need to start planning of leaving an education fund inheritance for your children.

You could set a university saving plan for your children and grandchildren by using the money market fund account. The plan you finally choose should be based on the estimate tuition cost, the age of the child and other factors.

Let’s assume, that you desire to send your child to a Nigerian private university, say the tuition fees is one million naira (#1,000,000) per session then for four years in that school you should be paying roughly four million naira (#4,000,000). Depend on the current age of the child; say the child is less than a year old then you have up to eighteen (18) years to plan for him/her but if they are already in secondary school then you have less than six (6) years to complete your plan.

The early you start saving for them the better; let’s say your child’s secondary school fees is one hundred thousand naira (#100,000) per term then for the three terms you will need to pay three hundred thousand naira (#300,000). If you open a money market fund account or any interest bearing account early for them and with just 10% interest rate per annum and you were able to save up to four million naira (#4,000,000) in the account; this can be achieved by constantly depositing cash on a monthly basis.

You can instruct your fund managers to pay the interest accrued to your child’s school fees account to take care of the school fees for a whole session, while the next year interest will be used to take care of the upper year school fees, it will continue until the child graduates from the school. Finally when the child gets into the university, then part of the premium (capital) can be used to settle the tuition fees until the child graduates.
So with this education fund account inheritance, your child can complete his/her educational training with or without your presence.

Financial education: This is one of the major inheritances any parent can give to their children; financial education is a must for every parent to give to their children before any other inheritances can be handed over to them. Some financial experts say that most people spend money that they have inherited within one year, so in order for the children must to spend all their inherited money they have to first teach them about financial education.

It is the duty of every parent to teach their children about financial education, that is the children should be taught to have the habit of saving at least 10% of every of their income, learn how to generate income from multiple streams of income, know how and what to spend money on.

Landed properties/assets/investment: This is the inheritances every Nigerian expects their parent to leave them with, Land, house, antiques, family businesses, books and collectibles and other things can be left as inheritance to their children and grandchildren.

If the main asset is a property, then the rent issue is taken care of for the children and if it is a family business then the children can have initial capital to start any business of their choice.
According to some research, it is believed that people in the current age bracket of twenties and thirties are a set of generation in history to be less well-off than their parents. If they own no property, their rent is likely to take up at least half of their income, leaving little left to save.

Leaving an inheritance for your children is a great way to make sure that they are taken care of when you are no longer with them and also give them a fair chance to succeed in this increasingly high cost society.

Olodu keonyedi – is a trained engineer and by passion and personal development a public/motivational speaker, a business coach and human capacity developer, he has a B.Eng degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Nigeria Nsukka, he is a member of Nigeria Society of Engineer and a COREN registered Engineer.

Email: olodukeonyedi@gmail.com Tel: 08037489704, www.instagram.com/sir_keon. www.facebook.com/olodu keonyedi_mentorship.