Each year around this time two things happen. The first thing is my mother-in-law gives me money towards my two daughters’ RESPs. The second is my girls receive a pile of Christmas gifts from various relatives near and far. Since most of these people only see my children at Christmas and holidays they, for the most part, have no clue what my daughters like, or what they already own. We generally end up with a pile of gift cards, too small toques, ridiculously pink toys, and other oddities.
I mean, my children have toys. They have plenty of toys. As the woman who spends her days cajoling her kids into cleaning up the approximately three billion various small pieces of plastic they own, I would go so far as to say that they have too many darn toys. Ditto for books, clothes, and ill-fitting winter wear.
Gift cards or cash are good in theory, but the truth is my children often find the concept of being unleashed in a store to pick out whatever they want to be too overwhelming. They wander around looking shell-shocked and end up picking out the oddest darn things, just because they “had to buy something”.
I wish I could magically turn the pile of nice, but not necessarily needed, gifts my daughters receive each holiday season into cash towards their RESPs. I often struggle to find cash to put towards the girls’ RESPs, so I am ridiculously glad, relieved even that my mother-in-law has chosen to give us money for this each year.
So I was pretty excited to find out about the new Heritage eGifting program which allows you to set up a secure page on your Heritage Subscriber portal where your friends and family can give money to put towards your children’s RESPs. It allows you to safely and easily collect gifts towards your children’s RESPs. It’s the first program of its kind in Canada. Pretty cool, right?
Here’s how it works: Heritage has teamed up with FundRazr, Canada’s leading crowdfunding platform, to offer crowdfunding for RESPs. If you’ve never heard of FundRazr it’s a secure online platform that allows you to easily and safely build crowdfunding or fundraising pages. The key part here is it allows you to collect secure online payments by credit card, debit and PayPal. It’s super simple to set up. Social sharing, Facebook integration, it’s all built right in, allowing you to easily share your page via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linked in, Pinterest, Websites, blogs and email.
Here is the perfect gift giving solution, not just for Christmas but for birthdays too. Something that will grow and have a lasting benefit. I only wish this had been an option when my girls were younger. Maybe the next time one of my daughters’ distant relatives asks if I’ve updated their online wishlists I’ll send her a link to this instead!
To take part in the eGifting program you need to have an RESP registered through Heritage. If you’re already enrolled with Heritage just log into your secure Subscriber Online portal and click the Heritage eGifting banner to get started. If you’re not with Heritage you can fill out a contact form and get started on setting up a subscription. For further info visit the Heritage Education Funds website.
Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Heritage Education Funds. As always my words and opinions are my own.
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