To ask how much you are saving for your children?

[Namechangemum100]

Following on from another thread about savings, how much money do you aim to save a year for your children.

For us as parents, we are trying to aim for £1000 for each year of their life, DD is 18 months and Ds is 4 months. This money excludes birthdays, Christmas's and gifts from family friends (but that's virtually nothing anyway).

So how many children do you have, and what saving plans do you have for them.

Aim is absolute minimum of £20k each by time 18.

Why?

Nothing here, can’t afford to, although each child has nearly £1k in trust fund account and youngest has grandparents paying into a savings account on birthdays and Christmas, she hasn’t got a trust fund account so that’s in replacement. Hope to be able a nominal amount each when I’m back in work but that’s as long as day to day live is covered and we can still afford to do stuff and activities etc.
I had nothing when I was younger so I figure they are all in a better position than I was albeit not a huge amount, enough to go towards a first car/driving lessons.

Aiming for 20k by 18. It will be towards a house deposit.

You don't get to choose what they do with it though

A question for everyone who saves all their children's birthday money etc, why? If I were to put £20 in a card for a child I would fully expect the child to be able to spend it now, not when they are 18. Do your children not get any joy from receiving monetary gifts? Seems quite a shame to me. As a kid I loved birthdays and Christmas so I could get to the toy shop and buy some of the things i had dreamed about after seeing the adverts

My teens have about £3k each thanks to bdays, Xmas and grandparents, oh and Gordon Brown's Child Trust Fund!

Both at college but have good jobs too which pays for festivals, makeup, booze. They put a % into savings.

Savings are for training/education in order to get a good job and buy a house or to buy a house.

My DH and I haven’t saved anything for his DDs and I’m certain their mother won’t have.

We want to encourage them to take reaponaibilty and be independent adults in the future, but I will certainly help them out financially with a house deposit ect if i see them working hard and saving themselves as a starting point.

Interesting thread, I'd like to second distantstars question and ask how people are planning to pay off their mortgages early?

Those who are saving for house deposits for their children, what is the plan? They'll have a relatively large deposit but then what - what if they can't afford the repayments on the house in the future?
I know it's a bit worst case scenario.

A question for everyone who saves all their children's birthday money etc, why?

From what age though? A two year old won’t grasp the concept of saving money and putting it towards something they’ve wanted for ages, so better to save it.

“Nor much. We are aiming to pay off mortgage in the next 6 year do all our mo ey does that. then they caN benefit from extra money when they are older, need it and we have no mortgage.”

Exactly this. I’m amazed that people still think that squirrelling money away is the right way. In 18 years that money will be worth so much less than one puts in.

You don't get to choose what they do with it though

Exactly.

Those who are saving for house deposits for their children, what is the plan? They'll have a relatively large deposit but then what - what if they can't afford the repayments on the house in the future?

Well, they would one hopes be looking at taking out a mortgage that was within their means no? Anyway, you have to pay to live somewhere whether it’s mortgage or rent so what’s so strange about hoping your child will be able to buy their own home rather than rent one?

None. Paying off mortgage and paying into pension are priorities, after that will be some kind of critical illness insurance and paying all the bills

We can’t afford to save while I’m a SAHM. IMO DC benefit more from my presence now than from a cash lump sum later on.

Also I’m not convinced 18yo have enough common sense not to waste money. I vividly recall being 18 and having cash from my part time job, and friends borrowing £20 here and there (and one friend borrowed £150) that was never paid back. I thought I was being kind and a good friend, didn’t occur to me that I was being fleeced. I also had a bf for six months who would ask to borrow money and when I refused there were a few occasions where he hit me and took it out of my purse anyway. I wasn’t mature enough to realise he was anything other than “depressed” because he would act loving at other times. The rest of my earnings while at uni went on nights out and holidays. A lump sum would have been squandered.

If I have the opportunity later on I would like to save to purchase DC a car or pay a house deposit. But no way will I be handing over cash.

We saved nothing specifically for the dc. However we paid all their uni fees and msintenance so no student loans.

We save £50pm per child, in an account in our name. Not really sure what exactly we’re saving for, but will probably give them a smaller lump sum on their 18th to piss about with, and maybe keep the rest back for house deposit/life emergency or something. We’ve got 17.5 years to figure it out though

We save the child benefit. But soon won't be claiming that and I'm not sure we'll be able to save anything then (as the child benefit cut off will not mean we are earning enough to save that each month)

From what age though? A two year old won’t grasp the concept of saving money and putting it towards something they’ve wanted for ages, so better to save it.

From any age, when mine were 2 I was able to say let's use that £20 from auntie bob to buy X because DC will love X

You don't get to choose what they do with it though

Depends whose name the account is in. DCs money is saved in my name. When he decides he wants to get married, or buy a house I will give him the money to spend towards that.

He won't just get it at 18 to do with as he likes.

They get a small gift of money at 18

And we are paying for the living costs of ds1 while at uni and hopefully will do this for the others if necessary

We paid for his car and he will probably get a bit of money towards a new car when he leaves uni and gets a job

Dh hopes to help them with stuff on an ad hoc basis

They have their own money saved

A little bit we saved when i was pregnant, birthday money etc

Ds1 has quite a bit, ds2 is next and then dd...dunno why she hasnt much money but she does spend it I suppose

We don’t have much in the way of savings at the moment - a family emergency depleted them all

However, my husband’s VERY kind aunt asked me to set up a savings account for my son and give him £50 per month.

I had my second son recently and not only did she do the same but matched what she’d already given my older son so they both have about £1200. They’re 5 and 5 months.

Once I’m back at work we’ll probably add £50 ourselves.

My family had nothing growing up but my husband’s were frugal, saved wisely and were able to give both of their sons a £30k gift when they bought a house and I’d like to do the same if I can.

We putabout £700 a month into our own savings, nothing specifically for our kids yet. We will do at some point set JP their own individual savings accounts and will probably put £100 a month into each. At the minute we have a wedding, and a bathroom renovation I want to pay for before we start that.

Our child benefit goes directly into DSs ISA, it then gets topped up with any birthday/Christmas money he has left after buying himself something.

We've also topped it up in the past when we've had windfalls or bonuses.

He's 10 and there's currently about £15k in his ISA.

We'd like to have about £25-30k in it by the time he's 18 and the idea is to let him have it as a deposit for a house when the time comes.

My children invest their birthday/Christmas money into their existing premium bonds that they were gifted when they were born, DH and I put our change into a joint moneybox daily and it gets emptied when it gets full, and the amount divided between the 2. Both has ISA’s that it goes into... I try to put money away for them as and when I can.

I try to save £100 a month for each dc in to various pots. They probably have around 5k each which I hope will help them through university. If they don’t need it all the better, they can put it towards a car etc.