Saving for a child’s education an RESP

It’s not too late to save for a child’s education with an RESP  #RESPwithRBC

Don’t forget to find out about RBCs contest where they are giving away three prizes of $500 each to help you start saving for your child’s education. To find out more keep on reading!

If you are one of those organized parents who is on top of everything or almost everything you most likely got a head start on your child’s education by opening an Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) for them not long after they were born. Perhaps you are like some who got them am RESP while they were a toddler or you’re like me.

I’m the parent whose child just turned 13 years old this month and have just started the process for her RESP. I’ve thought about it every year and then got distracted. My excuse was that we didn’t have her social insurance number yet so I kept putting it off and forgetting about it. I always had the best intentions but just never followed through, until now.

With my daughter starting high school this year, it hit me in early September that she’s only got 5 more years before she graduates and will be on  her way to post-secondary education. The good news is it’s not too late for us and it’s not too late for you and your child. If you’re child is still very young even better, if you haven’t looked into an RESP you can get going on it now! I now know it’s incredibly easy to get an RESP started and of course the earlier you start the better.

For example did you know that:

• If you start early and contribute regularly ($25 a week can add up to $50,911** in 18 years)
• You can receive free money from the government! The Canada Education Savings Grant will match up to 20% on the first $2,500 contributed annually. That could mean up to an additional $500 a year in your RESP, up to a lifetime maximum of $7,200!
• You have the flexibility to use the RESP for university, college, apprenticeship, non-credit courses etc., and if your child doesn’t use the funds, you can use your contributions and earnings to fund your RRSP!

I made an appointment with my local RBC branch as my family has all our accounts including our mortgage with RBC and I went in to talk about saving for my daughter’s education. My advisor walked me through it, which did not take as long as I thought, we signed the papers and got it started. Within a couple of days RBC worked it’s magic and it was all set up and ready for us to start contributing to it.

It was all very timely as my daughter had her 13th birthday so we told family and friends about the RESP and as a result many gave her gifts of money to contribute to her RESP. It does make for a wonderful gift for her future or any child’s future. She got some money to spend and the rest went to her RESP.

She was excited to go to the bank with me to deposit the rest of the money into her RESP account. As she put it to save so she could study to become a video game designer which has been her choice of career for the last year.

You can watch her on the video below talking about what she wants to be, she actually has two choices 🙂

I did tell her after this video that singers would benefit from an education too, writing music, vocal lessons, getting a music degree etc.. She’ll most likely change her mind a few times before she graduates high school and that’s okay. For me, it’s all about giving our children options so that they dream about being doctors, nurses, fire fighters or whatever else they want and supporting that dream by planning how we can save for their education.

So even if you’re child is not old enough to think about what they want to be when they grow up, that’s okay you can think about it and start saving for their education now.

You can find some fabulous tips on saving for your child’s education here:

http://www.rbcroyalbank.com/resp  and rbc.com/education

RBC is going to have a Twitter party on October 1 where you can wine one of 6 $100 gift cards. Watch for the hashtag #RESPwithRBC!

Enter the RBC RESP contest with 4 prizes of $500 (towards an RESP) to be won, winners can get a head start in saving for their child’s dreams! Go here ==> http://bit.ly/1tY3nGZ to enter!

Disclosure: I am part of the RBC RESP blogger program with Mom Central Canada and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.