The smart way to connect with parents

Old Mutual has launched the SmartMAX Education Plan website to connect with parents of young children in an engaging, innovative way.

The website offers various useful tools for planning and budgeting for education, as well as tools for fun events like baby showers and birthday parties.

“We’ve chosen to relate to our customers in a holistic way,” explains Jaco Gouws, product manager at Old Mutual. “Saving for education is a hugely important parenting responsibility, but we understand that it’s only one part of the whole adventure of parenting.”

All the tools have been created with time-strapped parents in mind and are quick and easy to use.

“Education is expensive: it’s estimated a child who begins Grade R at a public school in 2012 will cost his or her parents more than R450000 for primary and high school education. So our online financial tools have been designed to help parents be fully prepared for the cost of their children’s education,” says Gouws.

The budgeting tool helps parents budget intelligently by providing them with an easy 4-step process that will give them a graphic view of their monthly income and expenses.

The cost of education calculator allows parents to quickly determine how much they’ll need to pay for a child’s education over a given period of time and helps them keep track of what they need to save.

Also included is a milestone development guide, through which parents can keep track of every stage of their baby's development from pregnancy through to age 3. What's more, these pages can be printed to create a baby scrap book that will record when that first tooth arrived, what their first words were and other special memories.

Through the useful school finder tool parents can access a comprehensive list of available schools in their preferred area – helping them to make the right choice for their youngster.

On the fun side, there’s a baby shower planner, which helps to take the hassle out of organising a baby shower and includes useful tips and downloadable decorations. Also complete with creative decorations and a built-in RSVP system is the birthday party planner. Available on both these tools is a pledge form, through which parents and guests can pledge a donation towards the birthday child’s education savings.

The new SmartTRACKER tool is essential for all existing customers who like to keep up to speed with what their education savings. It informs the parent whether the current savings and monthly premium is enough to cover their education goals. Parents can then take a future look at the impact of making a few changes to their premiums or investment choices. This tool along with many other is available in a secure environment on MyPortfolio.

“Remember, a child’s future depends mainly on the decisions their parents make today,” says Gouws. “SmartMAX is a new way of helping parents to focus on the wellbeing of South Africa’s next generation.”

To check out Old Mutual’s SmartMAX website, visit www.oldmutual.co.za/smartmax.