Are you going to stand between your child and his dreams?

Ever since you had your child, it has been your life's mission to provide him with every material comfort you can think of. Even if you have less money in your pocket, you stop to buy him whatever he wants. The slightest frown on your child's face breaks your heart. You always wish to see your child smiling and happy.

Your role as your child's protector and provider can put you under considerable stress. Your child is so accustomed to asking you for things and you are so accustomed to gratifying his every wish that you do not stop to think about the future. It is certainly your duty to provide for your child, but have you taken a step towards personal financial planning?

As your child grows up and enters school

Then takes his first steps towards higher education, you realize that paying for his tuition, hobby classes, extra coaching and myriad other costs becomes increasingly difficult. Financing his education from your income throws other expenses off kilter: while paying for your child's education, you must also plan for your own future. Have you spared a thought about your retirement as well?

You can kill two birds with one stone thus:

Invest in a child future plan that creates a large corpus for your child's future education needs, and also take a retirement plan for yourself. The child future plan will help you pay for your child's dream of studying abroad, or enrolling for an expensive graduation course, or even taking a break from study to travel abroad for a residency. The money can also be used to fund his dream of starting a business alongside his education.

Meanwhile, you can calculate your future needs using a retirement calculator. This will help you gauge how much you need to spend via premiums for your retirement plan, so that you can also assess how much corpus you can expect to get at the time of maturity of the plan. Both these policies – child future plan and the retirement plan – also safeguard your loved ones in case of your unfortunate demise.

Now isn't that what your role as a protector really is all about?