What do you spend child benefit on?

[Nonymousnurse]

I’m a nurse, two DC, married and husband is a middle income earner. We qualify for child benefit but do not receive any other public funds.

I’ve been saving the child benefit, never spent a single pence of it, with the idea of passing it to my DC when they are older. I told MIL this and she looked at me like I’m mad, said she always used it for courses, partie, etc. But I reckon I can get by on our wages so have put the CB in a savings pot. I realise I’m fortunate to be able to do this.

Just wondering if others save or spend their CB.

Just day to day spending. It goes in the pot with our wages.

The kids activities. Baby sensory and swimming lessons for now. Then will go towards whatever they are interested in as they get older. But I'd say it's your choice. If you can save it for them for now then keep doing that. Will be a lovely amount for them when they are older.

Ours just goes into the general pot. However I spend way more than £200/month on their activities so I guess it goes towards that

General pot but I spend more than the cb on activities

Like others, it just goes into the bank account along with our wages. I do save money for the children each month but haven't mentally attributed it to CB. I wouldn't do anything differently if I didn't receive CB. I find it strange that anyone would really know what they spend it on unless they were struggling for money, which is fair enough.

Life. Food, activities, clothes, birthdays, holidays, savings, the roof over their head.

Never separated it out!!

Into a separate account and then used for larger purchases eg laptops for secondary school, school trips, etc. I'd like to have some left to gift to children so don't use it for anything else

Food, electricity, school dinners etc. Basically keeping them alive. If you dont need it thats great save it for their future.

It goes in the pot and gets spent on food, energy, car, clothes etc.

I put it into a savings account for each child. Plan to try and save it all until they are 18, by which time there will be about £18,000 each child which is a good chunk of money. Will then give it to them (in drinks and drabs) to spend towards big things - car, uni, house etc whatever they want to use it for.

DH is earning above the threshold but with pension contribution etc we often get under it. So we claim and put it in a separate account.

If we can keep it/part of it, then it goes into a saving pot or towards somehting specific. This year it went to the Summer holiday as it's a bigger one. Other years I paid for activities like Scout summer camp. Or it ended in DD's saving account.

It's designed to help with the cost of child rearing, so it totally is up to you how you define this and how you use it.

Just goes into the pot with the rest of my money, they cost a lot more than the £140 a month.

Nappies

Just in the general money pot here as well.

Anything, as it's not earmarked for any particular purchase.

When they were little I used it to pay for activities and days out, when they got to school age we put it away for them.

Life. I'd love to be able to save it for them, but not possible.

We don't get it any more but we put it in their savings account when we did.

General pot money but they have savings and bonds anyway

We don’t touch it, transfer it straight into a savings account for when they’re older. Never expected it before the kids were born so just act like it isn’t there.

I buy premium bonds with it. We have to pay most of it back at the end of the year when we do a tax return so can't spend it.

I save most of it, but if she needed a new bigger purchase (bed/car seat etc) then we take it out of that.

It just gets spent along with the other monies we have coming in.

For about 10 years general pot to yes keep alive.
Now I give them 10 each a month, 50 goes to school food /activities uniform and 50 toward their activities any left goes to holiday pot

As long as no one is a smoking it away whilst dc Cant have shoes who are cares??

@summerlovingvibes thats what I’m thinking, it will be a nice sum for them when they’re older (who knows what it will be with inflation 🙈🙈🙈), but I reckon it’ll be better than if I didn’t save at all for them.