Disappointed we didn’t save in child trust fund?

With investments it’s recommended that you plan to invest for 5 years. Investments can flux so short term you can lose money. So for the car goal I don’t think investment is what you are really looking for

My DS14 got the £50, it's now £229 as we haven't added anything. Wasn't in a position to really. He also has a savings account where birthday money and grandparents donations have gone, he's more interested in that. Given his age, and reading this thread, I might suggest to him he pools both of them into an ISA

I don't think they are talked about at DS's school. He's not mentioned others getting theirs.

Ours has performed ok and I do agree with a PP who said that a larger sum will be more difficult to fritter away.

I wouldn’t worry about it, it’s not as if you neglected your child over the years?
my daughters both had about 6/7k as I just set up a standing order and forgot about it.
sometimes the S.O was just for a couple of pounds when I was skint then I raised when I had more to spare.

I would presume so but the returns you were supposed to get just by investing it were wildly exaggerated too - six to ten times back the original investment. It always reminded me of the song about investing tuppence in Mary Poppins.

Even if you made a mistake - which it isn’t obvious - it’s not like you can do anything about it, so find something more productive to worry about.

DS2 got £11K as we paid into it every month.
He’s been told it’s meant solely for University.
So far so good…

That is a shame. We saved £10 a month initially in my sons and he took out £4K when he turned 18. My daughter didn’t get a child trust fund so we somehow have to find the same amount for her

It was something the govt used to do, but haven't done for a long time.

It was £250 at birth (and for a short period a second £250).

These were to start parents investing and to encourage savings from birth.

We added £100 a month to ourselves and before Trump crashed the market, it was tipping £30k. Luckily we've a few years to enable it to recover before DC are 18.

What is a child trust fund?

I have a Junior ISA for mine, but this like something different?

I didn’t bother with my eldest’s CTF. Youngest didn’t get one. Both have a building society account which has had money put into monthly since born but I also used money to buy uniforms etc until last year. Both have around £3k. They could access now but I keep the books away from them. When they’re 16 I think they get full access but to be honest I’ll just keep hold of the books until they want something substantial when a bit older. I also recently got some inheritance and opened up a child ISA each - transferring the CTF into one. I e added some inheritance to both of those which they can’t get until they’re 18. I added some inheritance to another online savings each for them which can be accessed as they do get offered expensive residential trips and figured that this money could pay for those.

mine are also lucky that one grandparents has saved for them. Also an aunt has saved for them as well. Not sure when they’ll get those accounts handed over.

When my eldest was given her CTF cheque there was a lot of media hype about how kids would get access in future and blow the lot. This was why we decided to save separately and not use those.

I presume it would only have a chance of paying uni fees if you continued to contribute into it.

We were all told it would pay our kids Uni fees. We went for the high-risk option and ended up with hardly anything. I was just grateful it hadn't lost money.

We didn’t add anything and ours got £450…..

We got the £250 CTF when my daughter was born (now 16). It dawned on me a few years ago that we'd not had a statement from them in ages so I contacted them to ask why. They said they don't send them but as I'd asked for one, they would. The CTF had barely doubled in that time and I noticed that there were fees being taken year on year for managing the account.

I contacted the bank and asked about a junior ISA. They dealt with closing down the CTF and transferring the funds to them.

It'll have grown a bit more by the time she gets it at 18, with interest and with no deductions. We've saved separately for her.

The voucher we got was for £250 so it’s earned £309, still not great for 18 year tho! I put £25 a month away for each of mine, son turns 18 in December and current projection is £7k, could do with that myself at the moment 😂

We felt the same tbh.
DS was thrilled he had over £500 though going to uni and has left a large chunk of it there to continue to be invested.

Well it’s on you so the disappointment is with your decisions not governments or life!

We put £50/ month in. Didn’t notice it gone. DD has £20k to kickstart Uni with.

Have you saved for retirement?

I totally ignored DS's, I was totally pissed off with concept as I could if really done with that £250 myself

DS got £600 and is over the moon with it and id putting it towards a car (I am also giving him some towards a car )

I didn’t add anything, I’ve never had enough to save but my daughter got just over £1k. It came just in time as her car broke down and she needed a new one to get to college and work.

Boring Money is a good place to start.

Also, there's similar topics covered in the Money talk boards which I've found useful.

You as parents won’t be able to access it, as it is your son’s money. But he should get a letter soon telling him how much is in it.

To avoid DD going giddy and spending it, we explained long before the letter came that we’d opened CTF account for her to fund her university as far as possible.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings-hub/

We didn’t put a penny into them for either of our dc. We had a third born just after the cut off period too.
Both the older 2 ended up with about £550 in theirs, both used it towards a holiday. Fairly sure they started off with £250 but I didn’t even bother with choosing where to invest it, they just opened it for us with whoever it was. I really didn’t take any interest in it tbh aS we have saved ourselves for them to get them both driving and bought them cars etc, paying for uni and so on. What they’ve lost in the trust fund (and really they haven’t lost bugger all) they’ve gained in other ways.