I recently became a parent

A Registered Education Savings Plan is a registered account built specifically for saving toward a child's post-secondary education. Contributions aren't tax-deductible the way RRSP contributions are, but growth inside the account is tax-deferred, and withdrawals used for education are taxed in the student's hands — usually at a very low rate, since a student typically has little other income.

The RESP's real advantage isn't the tax treatment on your own contributions — it's the government grant money layered on top, which is substantial enough that it changes the math on when to start saving. That grant is covered in full in the next section.

The CESG is a federal grant paid directly into an RESP, matching 20% of the first $2,500 contributed per year per child — up to $500 in grant money annually, and $7,200 over the child's lifetime. Lower-income families can qualify for an additional matching rate on top of the base 20%, up to further annual limits.

This is, functionally, a guaranteed 20% return on contributed money before any investment growth is even considered — there's no equivalent guaranteed return available almost anywhere else in personal finance, which is exactly why RESP contributions are usually prioritized early rather than treated as a someday goal.

Unused annual CESG grant room can be partially carried forward, but there are limits on how much extra grant can be claimed in a single catch-up year — meaning years without any contribution generally mean permanently missed grant money, not just delayed grant money. Opening the account early, even with a small initial contribution, starts that clock and gives compound growth more years to work.

Education costs have also risen faster than general inflation for decades, and there's no strong reason to expect that trend to reverse. None of this requires large contributions to start — consistency and an early start typically matter more than the size of any individual contribution.

There's no minimum annual RESP contribution requirement, which makes it flexible for a new family also managing many other costs. A common approach is contributing enough each year to capture the full $500 annual CESG grant (roughly $208/month, or $2,500/year) when the budget allows, and contributing what's realistic in years when it doesn't.

The RESP has a $50,000 lifetime contribution limit per child (not counting the grant money itself, which is separate from and on top of that limit). There's no rush to hit that limit — spreading contributions over the years leading up to post-secondary is both more manageable and, because of the annual grant cap, actually more effective than contributing a lump sum late.

An individual RESP is opened for one child and can be opened by anyone, including a non-relative. A family RESP can include multiple children, provided they're related to the subscriber by blood or adoption, and allows grant money and investment growth to be shared or reallocated between siblings within certain limits — useful if one child pursues a shorter or less expensive program of study than another.

A family RESP generally makes sense if you already have, or plan to have, more than one child; an individual RESP is simpler if you're saving for one child only, or if the person opening the RESP isn't a parent or grandparent (a family RESP requires a blood or adoptive relationship between subscriber and beneficiary; an individual RESP doesn't).

The most common misconception is that RESP money is lost if a child doesn't pursue post-secondary education. Your own contributions can always be withdrawn without penalty. Grant money generally has to be returned if it's not used for education, but it can often be transferred to a sibling's RESP within the same family plan, and in some cases converted toward an RRSP contribution instead, subject to conditions.

A second common misconception is that opening an RESP requires a financial background or a large first deposit — it doesn't. And a third is that RESP funds can only be used for university: registered programs at colleges, apprenticeships, and many other recognized post-secondary programs typically qualify as well.

Child life insurance is a real product category, but it's worth understanding what problem it does and doesn't solve before considering it. It doesn't replace lost income the way insurance on a parent does, since a child isn't a financial provider for the household. What it can do is guarantee future insurability regardless of a health change later in life, and cover final expenses in the rare event of a child's death.

For most families, prioritizing adequate coverage on the parents — the people whose income the household actually depends on — matters more than child coverage. Whether child coverage makes sense on top of that is a personal decision, not a default recommendation, and it's worth being clear-eyed about which problem it's actually solving before deciding either way.

A beneficiary designation on an existing life insurance policy doesn't update automatically after a birth — it has to be actively changed, and it's one of the most common paperwork tasks new parents put off. A will doesn't override this: insurance payouts generally go directly to the named beneficiary, regardless of what a will says, so an outdated designation can create real problems even with an otherwise complete estate plan.

This is also the natural moment to reassess how much life insurance coverage actually makes sense. The relevant question isn't a round number — it's what it would take to replace your income, cover child care, and eventually fund education for as long as your family would need it if you weren't there to provide it.

A child adds new recurring costs and new categories of unplanned expense — a sudden medical visit, an unpaid parental leave gap, a change in child care arrangements. It's worth resizing your emergency fund target upward to reflect the new, higher fixed cost of running the household, not just leaving it at whatever felt sufficient before.

There's no single correct number, but the same principle that applies before a child applies after one, at a larger scale: the fund should be enough to absorb a genuine disruption without immediately reaching for a credit card or interrupting other savings goals like the RESP.

A will becomes considerably more important once a child depends on you — most importantly because it's typically the legal document that names a guardian for a minor child if both parents are unable to care for them. Without a named guardian, that decision can end up in the hands of a court rather than reflecting your actual wishes.

A reasonable starting checklist: name a guardian for your child in a legal will, name an executor you trust, confirm beneficiary designations on all insurance policies and registered accounts are current, consider whether a trust makes sense for how an inheritance would be managed on a minor's behalf, and revisit all of it after any major life change rather than treating it as a one-time task.