Most dads are pretty good at showing up for the moments. The birthday. The game. The big stuff. We’re there for that.
What most of us are worse at is showing up for the future. The version of our kids that doesn’t exist yet. The 18-year-old who is going to need a car, or a college deposit, or a first apartment, or just a head start on something we wish we’d had.
Here’s the thing about that future: it’s being built right now. Quietly. In the background. Whether you’re paying attention to it or not.
The question is whether you’re building it on purpose.
The Number That Changes Everything
$10 a week doesn’t feel like much. That’s a couple of coffees. A lunch. The random stuff that disappears from your account and you’re not even sure where it went.
But $10 a week from the day your kid is born, invested consistently and left alone, grows to roughly $17,679 by the time they turn 18.
They didn’t earn it. They didn’t even know it was happening. You just made a small, boring, consistent decision and time did the rest.
Now run that same math at $25 a week. You’re looking at over $44,000 at 18. At $50 a week, nearly $90,000.
This is compound interest. It’s not exciting. It’s just math. And it is one of the most powerful things you can do for your kid that requires almost no effort once it’s set up.
The Trump Account: Free Money You Should Probably Know About
If you have a baby born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028, the federal government is putting $1,000 into an investment account for your child.
This is real. It launched July 4, 2026, via the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Officially called a 530A account, the program gives every qualifying newborn a $1,000 government seed contribution that grows tax-deferred until they turn 18.
Here’s what you need to know:
- Who qualifies for the $1,000: U.S. citizen babies born between January 1, 2025 and December 31, 2028 with a valid Social Security number. Your immigration status as the parent does not affect eligibility.
- What about older kids: Children born between 2016 and 2024 don’t get the $1,000 government bonus, but they can still open a Trump Account. And if your child is 10 or under and lives in a ZIP code with median household income under $150,000, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation is contributing an additional $250 per child for the first 25 million accounts. That’s worth checking.
- How to open one: File IRS Form 4547 through TrumpAccounts.gov, the Trump Accounts app (built with Robinhood), or when filing your taxes. Bank of New York Mellon manages the accounts.
- Contribution limit: $5,000 per year from all sources combined. Friends, family, and grandparents can contribute. Employers can kick in up to $2,500 per year tax-free.
- When can they access it: Funds are locked until the end of the year they turn 17, with limited exceptions. This is a long-game account, not a rainy day fund.
That $1,000 seed, left alone for 18 years at a 7% average annual return, grows to roughly $3,380. Stack that on top of your weekly contributions and the number gets meaningful fast.
What We Use: FutureMoney
We’ve been using FutureMoney for this and it’s the cleanest solution we’ve found for families who want to actually do this without overcomplicating it.
FutureMoney is built specifically for family investing. It’s not a brokerage that also happens to have a kid account buried in a menu somewhere. This is the whole product.
Here’s what makes it worth looking at:
- The Junior Roth IRA is exclusive to FutureMoney (this is what we have). This lets parents invest up to $35,000 in their child’s future with the potential to grow completely tax-free, without requiring the child to have earned income. That’s a structure you can’t get most places.
- They also offer 529 plans, Custodial Roth IRAs, UTMA/UGMA accounts, general investing, and a Trump Account Sidecar designed to pair with the government program.
- The gifting feature is genuinely useful. Instead of another toy nobody needed, grandparents and relatives can contribute directly to your kid’s FutureMoney account for birthdays and holidays. The money actually goes somewhere instead of ending up in a donation bin two years later.
Fees are low. The subscription runs $0 to $5 per month depending on your tier. For a fully managed portfolio, that’s hard to beat.
SIPC insured up to $500,000. Assets held with SEC-registered custodians including Alpaca Securities and Altruist. Bank-level AES-256 encryption. The trust piece is there.
We use it. We like it. We think it’s the right tool for dads who want a simple, solid way to start building something for their kids without needing to become a finance person to do it.
[Sign up for FutureMoney here]
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Here’s the deal…
We know this feels like one of those things you’ll get to eventually. After the house stuff. After the credit card. After the next raise. After things settle down a little. They don’t settle down. The window doesn’t get more convenient. Your kid’s time horizon starts at birth and every month you wait is a month of compounding you don’t get back.
$10 a week is not a sacrifice. It’s a decision. A small, boring, automatic decision that your 18-year-old will not be able to thank you enough for.
Set it up. Forget about it. Let time do the thing it’s very good at doing.
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*This post contains an affiliate link to FutureMoney. We use FutureMoney ourselves and think it’s the right tool for the job. As always, this is not financial advice. Talk to a financial professional about what’s right for your specific situation.*
