in asking you to sign this e-petition about child trust funds

[lasagne]

for all those children who had child trust funds (like my two) who will lose out with the introduction of the new Junior ISAs - they cannot invest in them, but the existing providers of child trust funds have no incentive to provide a good service as there will be no new investors. epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/7468

Investments will go down as well as up. The point about investing over time is that you have a greater chance of beating inflation (which devalues cash deposits in bank accounts) than if you don't invest (ie you leave the sum as cash in the bank).

The problem with CTF vs ISA is that the CTF has to be closed when the child comes of age, and if that happens during a downturn, so be it. One hopes stock market conditions will improve between now and the time when CTFs start to mature, but if they don't then it would be better to be in an ISA that can be cashed in when things do get better.

Depends on who you went with too. DS&DDs are worth more than was put in but I'm not adding any more. They have seperate savings accounts for their'proper' savings.

We ignored the CTFs for DC- I have the paperwork somewhere and they're welcome to whatever pittance is there on their 18th birthdays. We set up another savings account - in our names - on their behalf. I don't want them to have access to all their savings at 18, and that's why I never touched the government scheme. We have saved money for them if they need it for uni/deposit on a flat/starting a business/doing a course - but not for pissing away on whatever seems a good idea just out of A-levels.

I doubt this means you can't set up a Junior ISA, though. That would be odd.