As a parent, you want to give your children the very best of everything. Perhaps the top-most priority for you is to ensure that he/she gets the best of education from the best of schools and institutes. You know that good education can equip your children for the future, helping them take care of their social and material needs in the future. So, this Children's Day, Outlook Money, being your financial advisor, tells you how you need to prepare for your child's future financially.

You need to plan everything in advance, both financially and mentally, for your children’s future. You need to take your child's interests into account while planning for his/her educational needs.

For your benefit, we have put together the cost that you will have to incur in different life stages of your child.

Different life stages of a kid are associated with specific expenses. While some of these could be met from your current income, you would need to create a corpus for the rest of these expenses by investing systematically. Some indicative costs associated with children are shown below:

Source – Internal estimates, actual costs may vary. Some of the above expenses are estimated for multiple years like say pre-primary school expenses are estimated for a 3-year period, graduation course estimates are for a 3-5 year period. The above costs are indicative for private non-aided schools and do not include fees for private coaching, competitive exams, excursions, extra-curricular activities and provided for illustrative purposes only.

Today, a mere graduation may not be enough and one needs to have a higher degree to remain competitive in one’s career. The demand and in turn, cost of such education is going to go up and you, as a parent, need to be prepared for it. It is possible that your child might be dreaming big and would to pursue his education abroad.

Planning to study abroad automatically means higher costs for staying abroad, which will not only grow with inflation but also rise if the rupee depreciates. Presently, going by the estimates shared by those studying abroad, the cost of education in the United States of America, United Kingdom or Australia may set you back by $20,000-$25,000 a year as tuition fees and $10,000- $20,000 as cost of living, depending on the country you have chosen. Thus, the total cost may exceed $35,000 a year, which would mean over Rs 20 lakh for a single year at the current costs.

Despite what your child's dreams might be, as a parent you need to make sure you don't face any financial hurdle and are able to meet all the costs comfortably.

olmdesk@outlookmoney.com