1. Don’t ‘Borrow’ His Savings!
Children are adorable cuties, aren’t they? People can’t resist those round cheeks and dewy eyes, and they will open their wallets and dish out all the goodies inside just for the cutie pie!
Such moments of generosity are perfect opportunities to grow your child’s fortunes and earn him financial freedom by helping him become a millionaire by the age of 15!
Allow him to save all the money your friends and family gift him. Don’t go cap in hand to beg him to lend you the money, claiming you will ‘pay’ it back, ‘I promise’. Because you know you are not paying anything back right?
If you do this you will end up:
(a) teaching the child that it is ok to not be disciplined and stay the course on a given project.
(b) discouraging him from further attempts at saving because he knows you will just borrow it from him.
2. Help Him Learn to Save
Before you can borrow his savings he should have one to begin with! Help your child learn to save and invest his savings to yield higher income for him. Study how to inculcate a savings habit in your child. Give him opportunities and provide the means with which to save. Encourage him to recycle used plastic and iron materials and sell them for profit which he can then save.
3. Let Her have a Go at Entrepreneurship
Young girls who know how to groom and make hair are cashing out big time in their universities by plaiting, weaving, and rendering cosmetic services to their friends, roommates, and others. This trend became so popular that the country’s curriculum developers took note and decided to add Cosmetology to the list of subjects students can write in the Senior School Certificate Examination.
Younger children at home have caught on and are also braiding their playmates, neighbours, etc, hairs, for a fee! If the child saves part of this income, she is well on her way to financial freedom by the time she clocks 15 years old.
To give you an idea of just how much can be made from hairdressing, here is an abridged price list:
Braiding natural hair – N1,000 and above
Braiding with artificial hair – N3,000 and above
Cleaning of gel polish – N1000
Removing of acrylic nails – N2000
Filing with acrylic – N3000
Makeup with lashes – N7000
Makeup without lashes – N6000
They can do this on weekends after their regular chores.
4. Encourage Him to Plant a Tree
One source of passive income which is almost always overlooked is commercial trees such as fruit trees. Fruit trees and herb shrubs can provide a stress-free and surprisingly meaningful and steady supply of liquid income which can be added to your child’s financial resources. This particular source of income will allow him the freedom to concentrate on his school work while setting him up to be a millionaire by the age of 15. When in season, a single Mango or Orange tree can yield hundreds of fruits which are always in demand.
However small your compound may be, it can accommodate a fruit tree. These Six Useful and Small Sized Fruit Trees can fit anywhere even if you are renting a house in an estate.
People living in high-rise buildings will find these Useful Plants/Shrubs to Have around the House less intrusive but economically valuable.
5. Put Extended Family Members to Work!
Last but far from least is to make use of that your lovely, bloated, sometimes annoying but always loving extended family. Over here, we have the reputation of having big extended families. One child likely has about five uncles and two aunts on the father’s side, and two uncles and three aunts on the mother’s side. That’s seven uncles and their seven wives and five aunts and their five husbands totaling 24 uncles and aunts!
Let us imagine that all those uncles and aunts pay an amount such as N5,000 (the cost of two wraps of Shawarma by the way) into the child’s account on his birthday every year, that would total a tidy sum of N120,000 per birthday.
After 10 birthdays, our budding little pre-teen is already a millionaire. Even before the tenth birthday, the accrued money can be deposited with an investment company in a higher-yield investment or savings plan. This way, the child would have enough to be counted as a millionaire by the age of 15!
In summary
Time flies. You look back and a decade is gone already! You calculate how much you could have realized if you had allowed your child to keep his savings; some children get thousands of Naira in gifts and presents. And aside from gifts and presents, there are many simple activities a child can undertake to earn money. From planting trees to selling plastic and iron waste for recycling, the child learns financial discipline and also gets on the right track to becoming a millionaire even before he is 15!