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.

£280 per month since birth until we can keep it up.

I put all our child benefit money into DS’ savings account, all his birthday/christening/Christmas money has gone in there too. It’s not an ISA as DH and I don’t necessarily want him to gain full control of the money at 18. It’s in his name at the moment but we’ll invest some of it on his behalf in a way that we can control and give it to him when we feel he needs it like for a house deposit/uni/car. It’s what DMIL did for DH and it worked brilliantly, any money DH did have access to at 18 was blown on guitars and tattoos! I was much more careful but never had as much. We’re hoping to have over 20k saved up by the time he’s 18.
When he’s old enough we’ll set him up a seperate account with card access and give him control of saving his pocket money so he learns financial responsibility and to save for things he wants. He’ll not know about this other money for a long time (TBF he’s only 2 but it’ll be a good 20+ years before he knows about it!).

Slipp3rs that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how savings work. They grow - usually due to be a stocks and shares ISA or they grow with interest rates/ inflation as worst case scenario

@Slipp3rs you’re right in that £20k would be a house deposit today but in 18 years may only be a quarter of a house deposit, I’d still rather my dd had a quarter of a deposit than nothing at all.

I never saved anything for mine but found money when it was needed for big things when older. By that time we were financially stable and had inherited money, when my child was small we had nothing much to spare.

We saved small amounts from when eldest was about 14, we couldn't start any earlier.
By the time eldest was 18 we were better off.
The first smaller savings paid for driving lessons, test, insurance and the car came from them working pt since being 16.

We are better off now, not rolling in it but we help out where we can and have/will do for the other dc.

Uni, they have to manage themselves, but we are able to help out with things for their homes, we paid £2k for dc1 double glazing last year.
They either pay back like an interest free loan, or they keep the money and thats money I need to save for other dc.
The kids decide and are usually good with it, they know it isn't a bottomless pit and we can't always help them out.

I know money is important but if you can't afford to give your dc much financially you can support them in so many other ways.
You can provide them with time, help, wisdom and most of all love.

I'm currently saving bits for a fund for our last dependant dc to buy stuff for uni and make life a bit better. I have 4 years and have recently left work. It's not going to be much.

We have a stocks and shares ISA for DS(3); also investing monthly in stocks and shares with separate accounts for education, mortgage deposit and a pension for him.

As a lone parent on low income I don't think I'll be able to save for my kid or help him through uni :(. Its part of the reason why I'm buying/ will always try to live somewhere which has good unis within commuting distance so he has option to stay at home.

I hope to give him enough of whatever inheritance I get so he has a house deposit - but that would be in the very very distant future.

Is it really that bad if the money saved for a child is spent on something fun/irresponsible when the child turns 18? I don’t believe in giving gifts with strings attached. The money I have saved in my son’s name will be his when he turns 18, to do with as he pleases. Obviously I hope he doesn’t blow £10k on smack but if he wants to use the money to mooch around in Europe, or SE Asia, or whatever for 6 months thats up to him. At least he’ll have the option to go away to uni if he chooses to. I hope I will raise a son who I trust to make his own choices and mistakes.

User not that bad if they spend it on a wild holiday or a ridiculous car.

But there are a number of unfortunate circumstances where I might not want a young person to have sudden access to a large sum of money:

Drug addict
Alcoholic
In abusive marriage
Part of a cult

And if you've put savings in their name you have NO way of preventing them accessing it and blowing £10k on smack.

Absolutely shocked at this thread, genuinely didnt know parents saving money to give to their kids as an adult was a thing!.

I wouldn't dream of doing it for child; we dpnt have the disposable income people in this thread obviously have for one.

Another reason is I would want my daughter to know the value of money and not just be handed something on a plate on her 18th birthday.

This thread has made me think about that, my kid is only 5 so I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. Obviously I hope my son won’t be in any of those quite specific situations. There’s a small risk of the money damaging him vs the much larger chance of it benefitting him. As a general rule money does make people’s lives easier and more fun.

I trust that most would be sensible with the money, but I wouldn't put it into the kid's name just in case, because at 2 you don't know what they're going to be like when 18!

But equally you don’t know what’s going to happen in your life. Money in the child’s name will be protected if the parents financial situation takes a nosedive.

Our goal is about £30k per child (we have 2) in an irrevocable trust which can only be accessed for very specific purposes. We should hit that goal in about 10 years if we're careful, so it will be just in time for DS1 to start uni.

My daughter is 1 & has about £1000 in her savings account. I'm also trying to aim for £1000 per year. I don't put in an exact amount every month just here & there when I can. & grandparents/aunts/uncles usually put something in for birthdays/Christmas. So she's done pretty well so far. It is accessible to her when she's 18, but i will wait & see how mature she is & if I think she won't be sensible with it she just won't know about it until she's older... I never had this done for me as a child so I really don't want her to waste the opportunity! Although not even sure how far 10k is gonna get her in 17 years!! Be lucky to buy a shed at this rate.

Slippers, google compound interest. It explains why saving early and often is such a good idea.

We opened savings accounts for each child, and put a modest amount in each birthday. From a young age they have each made their own money (tiny amounts!) from lemonade stalls, selling old toys etc which they save. The money is in a mutual fund which we review each year (but haven’t yet changed). It will be theirs at 18, but they’re reasonably good at saving, and there’s probably only going to be enough to cover their University expenses anyway.

+1 for prioritizing our own pension and mortgage...no point saving for kids if we’re going to be a burden to them!

@summerdazeahoy
I don't think it would weird for aunt or uncle to save for niece/nephew.
My aunt (dad's sis) opened accounts for me and my siblings when we were young and she put money into them until we were 16.

@MentalUnload and another good reason for saving at least something in the children’s names is that if their parents became (for instance) bankrupt that money would be protected. Whereas
Savings accounts in the parents name wouldn’t be.

And those who are protecting solely with a range of insurances - I don’t think this is a good plan on its own. It is fine as part of a range of strategies (including savings) but the reality is that insurers can (and do) find reasons to wriggle out of paying sometimes, so this is not a “guaranteed” payout

@gwenneh...did it cost much to set the trust up/ does it cost much to run? And do you have to pay tax? Am genuinely interested as would love to be able to release a smallish amount at 18 and another amount when they are older

Try and do a grand a year for DD - that is effectively the child benefit money. Some goes into a JISA so is hers when's she's 18, some won't and will be enough to buy her a little car and insurance when she's 17.

Slipp3ers

People don't just put the money in a piggy bank though, they invest it. £10,000 put in a high-interest account 30 years ago is now worth £28,198

In index trackers, which is where DS's money is going to be sitting for the next fifteen years, it's now worth £121,466.

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/investing/article-3807972/How-10K-invested-shares-beat-cash-savings-90k-30-years.html

I've put £5 a month in each of my dc bank since they were born.
My dm also puts another £10 per month in there.

If they have money left over from pocket money or birthdays etc it will go in there money box then if they don't want anything I'll put it in their accounts.

It's not much but it's better than nothing.