By Christopher Cervantes, RFP

Deciding what clothes to wear and movies to watch may happen at the individual level, but deciding on financial matters must surely occur at the household and intrahousehold levels.

The people in your household — your spouse, children or even the extended family members who live with you — influence your financial decisions. With all the arguments and decision-making inside your home, you must assume a captain’s role in leading them to the path that hopefully avoids the storms in life.

Becoming a parent is a beautiful, life-changing experience that couples dream of having. But as you raise your kids, you realize it’s not just about cuddling, playing see-saw or building something out of Lego bricks with them. More important, it’s about being responsible for planning for the future, avoiding stressful situations, managing finances and growing a stable investment portfolio.

Those cute bundles of joy you have in your arms may pull at your heartstrings as you start realizing the obligations they bring with them.

Given the cost you would encounter even before you begin the journey of parenthood, how much you need to prepare for it would significantly depend on the lifestyle you want to give to your baby. Since it is pretty normal for parents to think that their children are extraordinary, it’s unsurprising that they tend to buy the most expensive stuff for them.

Unfortunately, some researchers found that overvalued children are not smarter or better-performing than others, so that reasoning seems to reside more in parents’ minds than in reality.

You must give your children the good fundamental development support you could afford. But don’t forget that, as a parent, the most expensive obligation you might face is not about which new toys would help develop them into geniuses, but to what good education you could give them. But college may seem different. It is the launching pad for life.

Every parent has to provide their children with the necessities in life — food, clothing and shelter. Providing them a good education would somehow ensure that they would have a better future and be good parents to your grandchildren. In the US, this duty usually ends when the child is emancipated, which generally occurs at the age of 18, when the child graduates from high school. For that reason, when children embrace this freedom, the first obligation that would be placed on their shoulders is paying off their student loan.

In Filipino culture, your obligations start when they enter college, but the support obligation can extend beyond that point and, for some, even to you grandchildren.

As parents, we seem to have taken the oath: It is my solemn duty to make sure that you, my child, will get to and through college, and I should pay for it, whatever it takes. When your baby gives his or her first cry, you should immediately think of how to meet that obligation. Don’t be distracted by the fashion and lifestyle some other parents give to their kids nowadays; focus on how you can give them a much better life than you are having now. In providing a better education, there are lots of options available in the investment world. What would work better would depend on your plan’s current amount versus its potential future value and your risk appetite as an investor.

It may be hard to prepare for your children’s college fund if you are taking care of other financial matters. Don’t forget that your obligation to your children is to give them a good education and ensure you would never be a burden to them while providing for your grandchildren.

Many people describe parenting is a priceless experience worth any cost. For that reason, some are even willing to have a child, but not a husband or wife. Unfortunately, despite how huge this obligation may seem to be, others plunge into parenthood without even giving finances a thought. But simple planning goes a long way in having a family life that you dream of having.