DH won’t pay into children’s savings accounts

Okay you’re wrong.

I'm with you OP. Even if he only put in £20 a month each it would mount up.

Presumably you earn less than he does because you are facilitating his career, which is why he contributes more to the household finances. I don't think it was wrong to make him embarrassed with your parents - maybe now he will start investing for them.

I don't agree with other posters on this thread.

I would just ask him why, if he is embarrassed that people know he doesn’t, then why doesn’t he? If he finds it embarrassing for them to know then it shows that he thinks parents should do it… so why isn’t he? Either he thinks it’s unnecessary, so then wouldn’t be embarrassed and that’s fine, don’t. Or he thinks parents should, and rather than be embarrassed when outed, he should just do it.

Exactly this.

He doesn't want to for whatever reason & that's his choice. You constantly bringing it up isn't helping.

Best thing is just drop it & accept you have different priorities. Neither of you is wrong just different

OP, I actually hear when you are coming from as DH and I set up a savings account for DD for her future. It was a big deal for us. We paid in generous contributions for several years when we had a relatively big disposable income.

Then we were greatly affected by the GFC in the late 2000s (I was made redundant and his business made considerable losses) and we raided most of it to pay the bills. ALl these years later I still feel extremely guilty as that money was always meant to be for DD's future, and in a sense it was because it gave a roof over her head and food on the table but she never had any money for uni, driving lessons etc. We never recovered financially, and other circumstances meant there was no spare cash to replace those savings.

Plenty of people prefer the flexibility of ready access to their money in case if emergency.

YABU. If he pays for the majority of stuff, I don't see a problem with making the payments into the accounts for the kids.

DP and I pay equally towards bills and monthly costs, but he pays for larger outgoings, so I pay for the "little" things, including making a monthly contribution into the kids' accounts. My mum also pays £5 a month into all of her grandchildren's accounts, but I'd never embarrass DP in front of my mum for not paying that in. After all, he's financial contributions are way in excess of what I put into the accounts.

Aka savings. Money doesn't have to be in a separate account to be saved. Unspent money at the end of the month is savings.
I don't have a separate 'savings' account i just allow the money in my current account (which has a decent interest rate) to increase a bit each month and that's my savings.

Surely extra money in his account is ‘saving’? If it’s not being spent month on month, it’s being saved isn’t it?

Well, is this the usual sort of thing, where he’s a bit crap with money plus thinks of it as his and not shared,so that he likes to keep as much as possible to spend himself, even just on crap? If so YANBU

I agree that he’s unreasonable to tell you that he will pay in when his actions say otherwise.

You were unreasonable to embarrass him in front of your parents. You’re not unreasonable to think he should pay but he clearly doesn’t want to.

Saving into your children's names is never a good idea. There are a multitude of reasons this could go very, very wrong and many are outside of your control and rarely on the radar of parents with young children.

I don't know why you're getting piled on . The issue is him saying he will do I repeatedly but then not. If he doesn't want to he shouldn't say he is going to. He should explain why he doesn't want to. That's the mature thing to do.

Maybe you should just drop it?

He clearly doesn't want to put anything aside so what do you hope to achieve by banging on about it?

But you say he’s not currently saving. So that disposable income must be being spent, currently? So surely he’d have to be giving up some of his current spend out of the disposable income?

But he might be saving for their future, by keeping the money in his own account.
Its a really bad idea to save money in childrens names. They get access to it at 18 and many make poor choices /blow it.
Why are you right, and him wrong? He has as much say about how this money is handled as you. You seem to just think because you've decided it should be in an account in their name, he's selfish if he doesn't go along with that - he's not, he just disagrees with you about the principle of saving money in children's names.
And as you can see by this thread, a lot of people agree with him. He's doing plenty for his children's future by paying the household bills and providing for them.

The point you are spectacularly missing is maybe he can afford to but he doesn't have to if he doesn't want to.

I’ve asked multiple times, but what is he currently spending that money on that you think he should stop, in order to put it in their savings accounts?

Ultimately you can't force him to pay - is this really the hill you want to die on?

Bringing it up in front of your parents was really uncalled for.

It’s slightly higher than an average U.K. salary. £31k is a below average salary for the U.K.