Gift a better future

The older generation now in their mid fifties or more elderly usually complain about the younger ones not being frugal in their spending nor having a say on their children's money habits. They find it many times shocking that in spite of high earning and multiple earning opportunities the younger lot is struggling to manage their home finances well. At times, the spending made on personal gifting,holidays or extravagant birthday celebrations gets a mixed reaction from the older lot. For them, the concept of savings is still at 80% of monthly total earning.

So, many times they try to enforce these simple things to get compulsive savings for the future of the their next generation. The approach remains non-interfering and easy for them to monitor.

• Gift a savings account – Create a separate savings account with joint holding with your children or grandchildren. In case of any special occasion like birthday or anniversary celebration or any other achievement, add in some money into it as your souvenir. You can even add a small amount on a monthly basis to add to the savings.
  
  

• Gift a small piece of metal – We are habituated to gift idols of God on any house warming party or even marriage ceremonies for that matter. So, if instead we contribute as per our budget a small piece of silver/ gold coin or even raw metal to the family it can be a useful investment for them. Today, the available denominations of coins are very small ( as low as half gram). So, instead of gifting loads of ceramic house decorations or expensive flowers, this can give the recipient liberty to spend it as per their preference.

• Create a demat account – If you intend to handover some kind of capital market investment to your children in future, start adding value to it by creating a demat account. On doing so, you can ensure that the wealth is in bits and pieces transferred to them as well as you can also add more value to it by purchasing time and again capital instruments to it. You can be assured of transfer of assets in your presence without any chaos or dispute.

• Contribution to expenses - This method though might be useful for a little younger aged children but it stills create great sense of responsibility among the children. It may include asking the children to contribute in home expenses or even pay rent for their stay at home although you might not need that money. The same can be then reinvested by you in their name for future growth aspects. Decide the quantam of contribution always in terms of percentage to avoid them getting into mode of numerical values calculations.

These methods are age old and can be implemented at any stage of life. For some it might sound foolish to do so considering the amount saved via this strategy. So, what we advise is to alter these techniques as your situation.It is recommended however to make a beginning.