I knew before my son was born that I wanted to get him into the market as early as possible. The earlier you start, the longer the money compounds. That’s the whole idea. Time in the market beats timing the market.

In reality it took me about five or six months to get around to it. Life with a newborn gets in the way. When I finally set it up, I put in $50 a month. I picked that number because it doesn’t hurt our budget, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it.

When he was born we received a good chunk of gift money from family that went straight into the account. Some of his birthday and Christmas money has also gone in since. He has no idea the account exists, and I have no idea what he’ll end up using it for. That’s fine. In the meantime, it’s there and it’s growing.

I put his money into InvestNow, same as our own investments, in the Vanguard Total World fund. I chose a non-KiwiSaver index fund deliberately. We didn’t want the money locked away until he’s 65 or buys a house. The goal is financial independence, and we want him to be able to access it well before that.

He won’t know about this for years. At some point I’ll show him the account, explain how it works, why we started when we did. I hope it’ll help him do what he wants in his life.

For now the $50 goes in every month without me thinking about it. Pick an amount that doesn’t hurt, put it somewhere sensible, and leave it alone.

Start as early as you can. That’s the whole point.