Investing for my kids

[mxracer317]

So my 18 year old son won $25,000 on a lottery ticket. Currently his plans for going forward are not set, but most likely a trade school. I am far from a financial genius, so what do you guys in the know suggest as to how he proceeds with the money? I'm researching, but thought I'd present the question. mtmuley

Have him get a student loan when he goes to school, which will be an interest-free loan while in school... all while allowing the $25k do something growth wise over the time he is in school. Will also help build his credit too.

If you’re in a position to financially help, let him know if he gets “A’s” you’ll cover some (or all) of the costs of his schooling. Anything less, he pays for it on his own. This incentives him to work hard. I see too many people pay for their kids school, only to have the kids frivolously waste their time because mom and dad were paying for it no matter what.

 

[mxracer317]

I'm kind of on the other end now, but we bought municipal bonds from the time our daughter was 3 and, with her scholarship had money left over. Some of our friends had money in the market during the crazy days (2000s), and their college money went kaput. For you money guys, with all the trillions going into spending are there opportunities here?

Pay your taxes now and get into tax-free investments, before the tax cut and job act goes bye-bye.

 

[Allenkoz]

I recently got some extra money from cashing out some PTO at work (apparently I don't hunt enough), so I'm working on setting up a custodial investment account with Charles Schwab for each of my kids, ages 12-17. It was a gift from me, then matching a contribution from them, and then additional funds of theirs if they wanted to contribute more. Their balances range from $200 to $600, so still fairly small amounts, but hopefully they can contribute again in the future. The two oldest have Roth IRAs, and the youngest has a simple brokerage account due to not being employed yet. We have established that possible goals are 1) college expenses, 2) first home purchase, and 3) retirement.

Anyway, the accounts are funded and we need to do something with the money. I'm thinking put the majority in an index mutual fund, a smaller part in a bond fund, and let them choose to invest an even smaller part with Schwab's Stock Slices if they want to pick a few individual companies. Any advice or feedback?

QQ

As sucky as the bond market is, I would stay away from that as young as they are. They can move to safer investments when they're older to protect the egg. For now, go with some good index and large, med, small cap, international investments.