Any parents here who have started your teenagers/children on investments?

[zac's mum]

What kind of investments? Don’t the usual investments require a substantial minimum amount? My child has too little seed funding to invest in anything other than a savings account that pays a little interest.


I encourage my child to donate to various causes, which I match dollar for dollar. That’s not really investment but still a wise use of our savings. We don’t see financial returns but we are glad to sow into others’ lives instead of just spending on ourselves.

[sharonkhoo]

Mid- to late teens may be a good time to start. My husband started our girls after A levels by having them open accounts with an investment firm. They basically invest in a low-risk unit trust (don’t ask me details because I don’t remember!) The starting amount is not large, and they invest a couple of hundreds each time their savings accumulate enough. We encourage them to keep some in cash, of course, but our girls are thrifty by nature. We are not extremely generous with pocket money compared with others, but they also get handouts from grandparents sometimes, so it does mount up. My husband keeps an eye on what they have, and they follow his advice. Once they start work in a couple of years time, he plans to get them to buy insurance as well.


Of course, if your young children have larger amounts which are earning nearly nothing in interest, you could invest part of it on their behalf (as part of your own investments, but with their agreement, and with clear accounting). I think it may be very troublesome to open accounts in the name of young kids as transacting could be cumbersome.

In earlier years, we just encouraged our kids to think about what they spend, and to save. Like ZM, we also encouraged them to give to church as well as to charity. As a family, we make a donation to a couple of charities at least each year around Christmas, and they will chip in as they wish to, and we cover the rest.