How to Get Grandparents Involved in Your Kids’ RESPs

Dave shares with Moira how his “joke” about getting grandparents to chip in for RESPs… actually worked.

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Now, you’ll get a kick out of this. I don’t know if you read The Wealthy Barber Returns, but I made a joke in that book and it was a joke that ended up becoming used in real life by many people.

I said, leave a brochure about RESPs on the table in your living room. And when your parents ask about, oh, oh, oh, what’s that all about? You say, oh, I thought you asked for that. For the kids’ education, it must’ve been the in-laws. Not only do you plant the seed, but you raise the competitiveness. And I’ve had many people tell me that they read The Wealthy Barber Returns and actually pulled that trick through how to get grandparents involved.

Grandparent involvement here is crucial. These high cost times do you not see a lot of them are really stepping up to the plate and helping out.

I do. And in fact, I read that book and that is actually in every financial plan that I create, I always tell parents. Talk to grandparents because if they wanna help their kids out, they wanna give some money, you worry about their future. This is the best way. I do recommend that grandparents turn the money over to the parents because of the estate planning sort of issues around that.

’cause everybody thinks beneficiary in this context means the person who inherits it. But of course it doesn’t. The beneficiary in an RESP context means the child for whom it’s intended, who inherits the account is about who is the subscriber’s heirs. And so it gets just a bit messy. And so I just think that’s the simplest is give it to the parents and let the parents do the investing.

And I do see that, I do see grandparents that want to help out and they love it.