does your cb get saved?

[NordicPrincess]

On another forum some time ago a lady came on saying that she always saved her child benefit money into a savings account for her dc as it was their money and not for her to spend.

I found this quite strange that she was so against the idea of using it to help cover the rent/food/electric bill. All our money goes into one pot and the goes where ever it it needed.

Saying that I have never paid into my childrens ctfs either (dont trust them) and my children do not have any savings either.

Do you save for your children? when they are different ages how do you decide how much to each child?

I see cb as help towards raising your child, my child needs heating and food etc so that money can be used for these things...

any thoughts?

I spend it on gin

Mine goes in my account and get muddled up with wages. I dont spend it on anything in particular.

I do save for my second son but not for my first.

The CB gets goes into my account to get spent on my DD- food/clothes/shelter. Imo that's what it's there for.

I did have savings for DD but had to spend it on moving costs after me and her dad split up last year. I had no other money- no child tax credits nothing apart from piss poor wages and cb. Grim times.

I aim to start saving for her again when I've paid off my debts.

I am not in my 26th year of claiming child benefit. I have yet to feel in a position where I didn't need it so no question of its being saved.

My CB is paid into my current account and spent on day to day essentials. I do feel I should buy some clothes for my DC once a month so that they get something from it, altho with new uniform and shoes not much was left over anyway.

A friend of mine used to save her's and i did think at the time how extragant.

extravagant

I only have my Pension + Child Benefit for grandson,11, so can't afford to save it.
I try to put a wee bit by for him for when he's older or if anything happens to me.

I give it to my teenage ds ..he spends it on red bull and MacDonalds

For some reason I thought you HAD to save it for your DC, so always have done (DDs are 4.5 and 1.1). I just asked my sister what she does with hers (DN is 9 months) and she said "save it of course, don't you have to?". Thinking about it, neither of us actually know why we both thought this was 'the law'!

We are fortunate in that we don't need it for day to day spending so we set up a pension fund for our DS which he can't access until he is 50 !!

no! I save a little money for the dc's every month but certainly not the full amount of CHB. We need the money for day to day stuff.

We've put dd's cb into a separate account since she was born and have just started doing the same for ds (although it's a little late as he's just turned one ) We figured that if we never had it we wouldn't miss it and there's no other way we could afford to set up a savings account otherwise it seemed like the best idea to ensure they both have a bit of savings when they turn 18.

You thought you had to save it? why?

yes, i do save for them. each of them has a bank account which was opened shortly after birth. any christmas/birthday/you've been born money goes into them

i would LOVE to be able to provide them with a deposit for a house or something one day with what we've managed to save. or at least their first car or uni fees or something like that

the child benefit however, is currently being saved towards my new kitchen

usualsuspect Were you asking me? Until I read this thread, I think I just assumed (incorrectly obviously!) it was like the CTF money - to be saved for the child. And maybe I told my sister that's what you had to do with it!

On a silly level, I don't understand how it works if you save it for your children. Don't you get less for second children? Do you then feel obligated to make up the difference, or say with a sad face, "Your big sister got more than you, because she's our number one child."?

Only started saving the whole amount for him since i started work again, we have been putting it into his CTF, plus 75% of my wages go into an account for him.
DS is currrently more cash rich than his parents.
I had nowt growing up, DH had a lot, money doesn't buy you happieness, but it makes things easier.
We don't need to use it now, so we save, but we did in the beginning, and if we need to in the future we will again.

I put £50 a month into each of their accounts....think dd gets more than £50 in cb and ds gets slightly less so it evens itself out in the long run.

CrystalQueen We just saved DD1's for her, then when DD2 was born and we started getting CB for her too (yes, it's less for a second child) we just split the combined CB payment in half each month to go into their savings accounts.

Crystal - fortunately I've only got one child!

I spend it on things child-related - clothes for the children, baby food, nappies, school books for DD1 etc.

DH and I save other money, so technically could mentally recompartmentalise and say we save it... but you know what I mean.

Mine goes into a savings account for ds at the moment, unless it's shoe time, when I use it to fund his shoes.

When he is at sixth form, I plan to use the CB for his allowance as he will back in the UK boarding and it will form the basis of that.

Before anyone piles in, yes we are abroad, and yes, I am allowed to claim cb whilst abroad as dh HM Forces.