It's never too early (or too late) to start compounding wealth for you and your family. Even just a period of a decade can create tremendous wealth with compound interest.
The people with the most time on their side are children. They have a whole lifetime that compounding can work for them, whereas some people don't get around to investing until their 40s or 50s.
If I were going to invest for my children I'd want to choose investments that are diversified by industry, give exposure to the global economy and can be passively held.
Here are three of the choices I'd pick:
Vanguard MSCI Index International Shares ETF (ASX: VGS)
This is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that gives investors exposure to shares listed in North America, Europe and Asia. It currently has nearly 1,600 holdings and the fund's management fee of 0.18% per annum is very low considering all the positive qualities you're getting.
Arguably it would be possible to own just this one investment for your whole life and do well out of it because it ticks all of the investment boxes.
Future Generation Global Investment Co Ltd (ASX: FGG)
If you prefer the idea of people actively choosing your child's investments but you're not sure who to go with then this company could be the way to go.
It's a fund of funds, it invests in other fund managers that are meant to be the best in Australia. Over the past six months, year and since inception the Future Generation portfolio gross return has outperformed MSCI AC World Index in Australian dollars.
The other good thing about this company is that there is no management fees or performance fees. Instead, it donates 1% of the NTA annually to youth mental health charities.
BETANASDAQ ETF UNITS (ASX: NDQ)
This is another ETF, it gives investors exposure to the biggest technology companies listed in the US on the NASDAQ.
Children's lives are already surrounded by Apple, Alphabet (Google), Facebook, Microsoft and Netflix. I imagine that in a decade or more these technology companies will be even more integral to how we live our lives. Our children's lives will probably be even more integrated with how youth are willing to try things.
This ETF has strongly outperformed most other benchmarks and I imagine it will continue to be a good long-term way to play the US technology sector considering how much growth those big businesses are achieving each year.
Foolish takeaway
I'd be happy for my children to just own these three shares for the rest of their lives, or at least through their childhood and teenage years.
