You say you want to build generational wealth. You say you want your kids set up for life.
But then you pay for their education the same damn way everyone else does, out of pocket, out of your personal checking account, with money you already paid taxes on, and you call that taking care of your family.
That is not generational wealth. That is just spending money.
Here is the pattern I see constantly. Parents work their asses off, build a business, make good money, and then turn around and hemorrhage it on tuition, school supplies, tutoring, and all the other expenses that come with raising children. They pay full price. They pay with taxed dollars. And they pat themselves on the back for being responsible.
Meanwhile, the families who actually have wealth are using completely different rules. They set up Coverdells, they structure education expenses through tax free accounts, and they engineer the whole damn thing so the money stays in the family. Their kids grow up inside a system that multiplies. Your kids grow up inside a system that depletes.
This is not about the Coverdell specifically. This is about how you think about money and your children.
Most parents operate from a place of sacrifice. They believe the right thing to do is give their kids everything and ask for nothing in return. That sounds noble. But what it really does is teach your children that wealth is something you spend down, not something you build up.
Think about what you are actually modeling. You work. You earn. You pay taxes. Then you pay for their stuff. The money leaves. It does not compound. It does not multiply. It does not create more of itself. You are showing them that money is a one way street.
Now think about what you could be modeling instead. You structure accounts for them at birth. You move money into those accounts strategically. The money grows tax free. You spend it on education expenses that were going to happen anyway, but now the growth is theirs to keep. You are showing them that money can work. That money can multiply. That there are rules to this game, and if you follow them, you keep more.
Ask yourself a harder question. Why did nobody teach you this? Why did your parents not set this up for you?
The answer is simple. They did not know. And because they did not know, you did not know. And now here you are, trying to break the cycle, but still playing by the same rules they played by.
You cannot out earn bad structure. You can make all the money in the world, but if it all flows out through the same holes, you will never accumulate anything lasting.
The shift is not complicated, but it requires you to stop thinking of education as just another bill. It requires you to see it as what it actually is, a category of expenses that can be structured, engineered, and optimized. That is what the wealthy do. That is why their kids start ahead and stay ahead.
What you do next is up to you. But stop pretending that paying full price for everything is somehow noble. It is not. It is just expensive.