How many of you who are foster parents have opened savings accounts for your foster children for their future, whether for college, vocational training, or ongoing care needs?
What kind of account, and how much do you put into it?
What will you do if your child is reunified to help them with the college / other future expenses, if anything?
If you save for your foster kids, why? If you don't, why not?
If your child is unlikely to ever end up in a college setting due to disabilities, what ways do you help prepare for their future?
I would love to hear how other foster and pre-adoptive parents have dealt with the question of saving money for the future of children who are not (yet) legally ours. No judgment here, just true curiosity about how other foster families approach this issue.
I know I am a little late on this one but here's what I did. I no longer foster since I have adopted 3 of my former foster children. When I fostered "older" kids, I had a system for how I used their monthly stipend which in our state came in 2 installments. The first installment I used for their essentials (clothing, shoes, supplies, etc.) that I didn't automatically cover with my own income (and created a system for anticipating upcoming expenses--field trips, school tshirt, soccer cleats, summer swimsuits, etc.) The second installment would sometimes need to be used for some of these too depending on time of year but whatever was left over I put into a bank account for them. Sometimes it was $10 other times close to $100. When they I kept the account as long as I could keep track of them and eventually got the money to them as they got older. In one case it covered a child's senior class trip (she was in care with a relative). In another case, there was enough to cover one of my foster daughter's first year expenses at college. I think it is hard to do this for younger children because some expenses are higher (diapers, formula, etc.) so I haven't "squirreled" away as much for those children.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this helpful feedback! I'm going to do another post to draw folks' attention to your comment since it may be useful to other families. I like your ideas.
ReplyDelete