Disappointed we didn’t save in child trust fund?

I think you should be happy for not throwing good money away. That fund has basically lost half its value considering inflation.

OP, it is best to speak to an independent financial adviser (IFA) who can advise you on the suitable investments based on your and dd's circumstances.

I think you probably thought the government put 500 in as this was the plan by labour then the tories got in and stopped adding to it then pulled the plug for later babies you would have just set up a standing order from your account to her trust fund. I would not worry about it now you did what you could and she has a free 559 to spend.

Same here.

LISA is a trap where we live as there aren't many properties below 450K in London. The only other way to access the LISA is to wait till you are 60 in which case since the money is locked up for so long, it is more tax beneficial for a working person to invest in a pension than a LISA.

HMRC link
You can use this official HMRC tool to find it

How do we access sons account. He is 18 soon and I totally forgot about this.

Yes, investment 101. Investors cottoned on to high fees and the trend in the last 10-15 years or so is to buy low cost index funds. That is why the ETF (exchanged traded funds) market has grown in recent years.

Actively traded funds with high fees have largely fallen out of favour. But so long as the fund has risen because the underlying investments are risen (which is very likely over 18 years), the high fees in themselves just mean that the fund will not grow as much as the exact same one which had lower. But it will generally over 18 years still grow by many multiples of interest had that sum been invested in cash/savings.

Mine got just shy of £3k. Looking at the overall statement, alot was lost when the market crashed because of covid.

You are cutting off your dcs' nose to spite your face. Money is money. Totally neutral. It is what you do with it. There is a huge array of 'products' out there as to how to invest CTF money. You could have educated yourself on the options for your dc's benefit.

Sadly, it is your dcs who lose out. Will they even claim their CTFs at 18 if you are so sniffy.

Some providers have been helping themselves to generous fees over the years so the fund may not have grown by very much at all

I only remembered about dds during covid and it was worth about £700ish then. I put it in an isa and set up a dd to put £20 a month in, still won't be much but think dd has forgotten about it (she's now 20), so I'll just keep paying in to it until she remembers and then give her what's in it.

@blueshoes- we have done the same as you in putting more money into our ISAs because we already put the max into their junior ones.
We also live in an area where most properties wouldn’t be eligible for the house ISA thing so that’s pointless for us.

Chances are, depending on the fund chosen, the amount it had grown over 18 years would more than cancel out the 10% recent drop in the global market index.

If in doubt, I always google Martin Lewis ! He makes things very simple :

www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2025/02/lifetime-isa-martin-lewis-treasury-committee/

Just read into the lifetime Isas as there are penalty clauses re what you use the money on, and if you withdraw for something other than a house deposit (and there’s a limit on the value of the house) then they reclaim a percentage which can be greater than the money you are given in the scheme. Our CTF provider called us when DC1 turned 16 to talk us through options in preparation. And will call him ahead of his 28th birthday.

Oh really, I didn’t know this. Thank you, will investigate this further.

I have a son who just turned 18. Yes he discussed with his mates.

As a result, some of his mates are now taking a leaf from his CTF (now ISA) investments.

We do save a portion of their investments in our own ISAs. That is because in later years where we were earning more and could set aside more, the dcs hit their 9,000 per year JISA limit whereas dh and I had a higher 20,000 ISA limit.

Due to high inheritance tax, it is not good to put their money in our name when it actually belongs to the dcs. I would prefer to do a mix until we are sure but their money should be in their name once they are shown to be sensible (with prenups etc etc).

I agree it is a leap of faith to trust them with money at 18. That said, the apple does not fall far from the tree. Dh and I are sensible with money. I think ironically the larger the sums they get, the less likely they will blow it. Just to give a hypothetical, 50,000 is a decent sum for a house deposit but 5,000 is not really. So the temptation could be to spend the latter.

I think at the time you were sent a voucher to invest in a child trust fund. If you didn’t, it was randomly allocated to a fund or to cash. Some performed better than others.

We put the original £250 in, added another £250 later and saved £15 a month. DS had nearly £6k in his CTF when he turned 18 in Jan (though it has since been battered by recent ups and downs of the stockmarket since he’s just left it there).

I’m saying this not to make you feel bad, OP, but to demonstrate the power of regular saving if it’s just a direct debit that goes out and you don’t think about. Your DD can easily accomplish this for herself - especially if she’s working. Get her to start a savings fund that she regularly puts a small amount in (and you could also contribute if you wanted) and she can build savings that she’ll appreciate all the more for having saved them herself.

Does it give the date of the fund valuation on the letter? A Stocks & Shares ISA will probably have plummeted in the last week or so because of Trump