It is Never Too Early to Start Planning for Your Child’s Education

Sponsored post

We know that when you hold your new baby, the thought that you will one day be packing them off for their first day at kinder or school seems so far into the future, it doesn’t even seem worth considering. But as any parent of school aged-children will attest to, that day will come around all too soon. Blink and you might miss it! So now is a great time to start thinking about your child’s education and putting a plan into place on how you are going to fund it.

When planning for your child’s future, it can be easy to overlook the total cost of education. In addition to yearly school fees, you still need to take into account additional costs such as uniforms, camps, computers, textbooks and stationery, music and sports equipment and school excursions. (Seriously, it feels like it’s never ending sometimes!) In fact, it has been calculated that for a child born in 2016 some families could spend more than half a million dollars* just to put a single child through school. Whilst this may not be true for all of us, once you start to crunch the numbers, you’ll be surprised at exactly how much it is likely to cost, regardless of what type of school you choose. With the cost of education in Australia rising by more than double the rate of inflation during the last 10 years#, it is a good idea to start planning now.

To help you plan, you simply need to decide on what’s important for your child’s education. Ask yourself; what type of school does your child need? What social and emotional support is available? What extracurricular activities would my child benefit from? Once you have these answers, you then need to consider the costs.

To help, ASG has an Education Cost Calculator on the ASG website that can help parents understand what to expect.

ASG’s education funds offer a simple and effective approach to prepare for the costs of your child’s education. You can choose from flexible or structured savings plans to suit your personal preference.

ASG has been providing financial products and education resources to help families prepare for their children’s education for more than 40 years. In that time they have supported 520,000 children, and have returned more than $2.3 billion in education benefits and scholarship payments to members and their children.

The great thing about ASG’s education funds, is that they qualify as scholarship plans under Australian law, so they are a tax effective way of saving, and you can start from as little as $2 a day.

In addition, ASG also provides their members with a range of parenting information, educational resources, special offers and discounts to support them through their child’s school, and university years.

For more information Call 131 ASG (131 274) or visit ASG.com.au to find out more and review the Product Disclosure Statement.

*Based on data sourced from the 2016 ASG Planning for Education Index.

# Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics – March 16- 6401.01 Consumer Price Index, Australia

Disclaimer: Remember that making a financial investment is an important decision. Please read the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) for the relevant education fund to determine if the fund is right for you – available at asg.com.au/pds or call 131 ASG (131 274) and we will forward a copy to you.