To ask how much you have saved/aim to have saved for your child when they reach 18?

YABU

I know literally no one who received a savings packet from their parents. Nothing saved for our two children. Financial assistance for them will be determined as and when they need it, if we can afford it.

We couldn’t afford to save. Money was extremely tight when our DC were younger. They had around £500 in a regular savings account plus the child trust fund thing. They were given money by their grandparents which was a modest sum. My 19 and 17 year old have just bought their first cars using the money they were given/had saved.

DH did start them both off with a small private pension though that they can take over when they’re earning

😂

I save £100 a month for her, so just slightly over the child benefit amount. Will save the same for DC2 (if we have one). Appreciate we are lucky to be able to do this.

DS4Yrs old -£8K
DD1yr - £800

I have about 3.5k for my dd2 but only because both her grandparents have been incredibly generous and given her £1k each. From now on the savings will slow right down, I think I'm putting in about £20 per month into her account.

It's probably very cultural and seems to not be the done thing in the UK which is fair enough. Some other cultures look at things very differently and would see nothing wrong with this as all money is family money and a parent would never cheat their own child. But I think that with our culture being different here, yes people be shocked perhaps that a parent was paying their mortgage with their child's gift money even though said child would inherit in the end

I think £5k by 2 years old is unusual op. DS is nearly 18 and he has around £10k in a CTF and then some money in a normal kids savings account.

Not all of this came from us though - in fact most came from birthday and Christmas money where we let him spend 50% and put the other 50% away. He's quite sensible so I'm not worried that he'll blow it on something stupid.

DS was 18 last year and he had about £1000 in his trust fund that’s the government set up. Which doesn’t seem a lot but he had about £5000 of his own savings when he started working part time at 16. I gave him monthly his child benefit when he started secondary school and it was his choice whether to spend on things like days out with friends or save it. Any birthday, Xmas money he took full ownership of too and could spend or save that. I might not have saved a lot for him in comparison to others but he’s become a real saver himself with the way we did things. Every wage he gets he’s always putting money away.

@Pringleeo your post made me smile.

two reasons, firstly (as in all things) you can only save what you can afford to save.

Secondly, I lived pay cheque to pay cheque way past my child's 18th. I'm way more financially comfortable now. Now my financial issue is keeping my current account below the limit where they'll have to go to probate after I die. It will just make life easier for them.

I wouldn't worry about how much you can save before they are 18. When you die, I don't think what your child will look back and remember how much you have given them financially, but they may well recall how much you gave them emotionally.

£100 a month since birth. They get £150 each every birthday and Christmas from relatives, which goes straight to savings.

I don’t check frequently but DS 10 has just over £15k at last check. It won’t touch the sides for uni.

We have saved nothing for our 3 and 1 year olds and that isn’t going to change any time soon. I don’t want to give them lump sums when they are 18 and might just blow it all, I’d rather save for myself and then help out as we can (Hopefully for first cars, house deposits, weddings, uni fees type things) for from that pot.

We will be starting JISAs for them this year as one of my grandparents died and very kindly left them a few thousand each so if there’s anything else like that they’ll get it but no big cheques at 18 from us.

We are considering starting junior pensions for them to give them a head start given how hard it is to have enough for a pension these days. But that will be low amounts here and there as we can afford it - our own pensions are more pressing problems!

I’m a big fan of paying off the mortgage quicker, but theres no guarantee she’ll get that money back despite your best intentions. I just wouldn’t touch Dd’s money, it’s not meant for me it’s for her, if someone wanted to contribute towards paying off my mortgage I’d be delighted to take the money but it feels quite wrong to take what wasn’t intended for you.

She’s got an account where all cash gifts go, think she’s got about 5k in there but otherwise nothing. We are ok for money and don’t need to save separately for her to pay for uni (obviously this may change but we spent a few years just throwing money at the mortgage as a priority). There is no way in hell I’d be giving an 18yr old a lump sum saved over years. I have no idea what Dd will be like at that point but I’d rather not risk it. There should be funds available for uni and a deposit etc (fingers crossed).

We're hoping to save 20 a month each child till it gets to about 3000 that we will gift them on their 18th. Hopefully it's used for good/something useful, or at least they have a great time with it and have some good memories - then in theory it could be a bit of a lesson in how quickly savings can evaporate if not being careful/life lesson so they're better with money in future. Who knows....

If all goes to plan we'll have the mortgage paid off by the time they're 18/going to uni so we'll have some extra money to support them as needed. It's my full expectation that retirement ages will continue to increase/economy will worsen house prices etc will leave everyone paying extortionate rent unable to save their own money will mean it'll be the norm for parents to keep working to support their children into their 20s/30s.

Nothing in his name. We save quite a lot ourselves which we will use as and when we need it. I don't really want him coming into a lot of money at 18.

Edit - I don't want him getting a car at 18 either! Would prefer some more pre-frontal cortex development before he's driving 😂 We're not rural so it won't limit him to wait a few years.

Thanks for asking the question OP, it’s interesting to read how/why people chose to save or not. I do currently save for my baby and toddler (in their names) but this thread has given me some thought as to whether that is a sensible thing to do!

Please please please, to all those parents reading this who can't afford to even get through the month let alone save....DO NOT FEEL BAD. Mumsnet isn't the accurate reflection of society you might think and there's thousands and thousands of people in your exact same shoes who also haven't saved. Please don't feel you're letting your children down. They'll find their own way even if they don't have a trust fund.

We have been putting £50 aside for each kids since they were born and we’re able to give them around 10 k on their 18th to help with uni

We have 6 so no huge savings but better than the zero we got saved for us growing up. We put £10 a month in for each where they can't access until 18. I put what we can in a normal savings account, eldest had almost £1k in that when I stopped adding to it at 16 and I aim for the others to have similar.
The way the eldest has spent it I'm glad didn't save more, not much to show for it. Money for us was very tight when we 1st had kids so that small amount was not so small to us, you have to do whatever you can afford to do and never feel bad for not matching what others save for their children.

Tbf I agree it’s not on using money other people have gifted to your daughter for your own mortgage. It’s stealing from your own child imo.

I have two children. Each of them gets £25 a month into a JISA for when they turn 18, for use on gap year/car/whatever. I also put £100 a month each into a stocks & shares ISA in my own name which will be for uni fees.

Ds 14 has £10k saved for him currently.

Surely you just save what you can when you can based on your budget. Everyone starts off at a different point....
We save less than 2% of our net pay for the kids, the priority firstly is all the other bills and our other savings.