To use my child benefit..

[ridingshotgun]

To pay towards food shopping?

A mix up with a tax bill has left me skint this month and I've just had a lecture from my mum that it should be going into a saving account for my child

Can Ibe nosy and askhow much CB is these days ?

I wish we had Child Benefit. My husband is a higher tax payer so we are exempt even though we only have the one income. It is immoral that it is worked out this way. I have several friends with a joint household income of 100 k who receive it and put it in their children's savings accounts.

Think it's £81 every 4 weeks. We save ours for activity holiday for our child in the summer plus extra curricular activities

Those of you who put your child benefit into savings for your children, how do you work it out since the eldest child gets more than subsequent ones which seems rather unfair.

Its about the equivalent of £2.95 a day, enough to feed, water, clothe and keep a child warm.

I couldn't imagine saving it for 18 years for them to piss up the wall at uni in 6 months

Why o earth would you even be discussing this with your mother? Seriously, as an adult you need the privacy and autonomy to run your life as you see fit.

I thought child benefit was to make sure families had at least some money to go towards the cost of feeding and clothing their children, not to save a nest egg.
If I hadn't needed it I think I would have donated it to charities helping deprived kids.

If the intention was for CB to be saved then the government would just pay a lump sum when they turned 18. Of course you're not BU.

I can’t afford to save it - we usually go to Aldi the day it lands in the account as my mat pay is rubbish. It goes in with all the other household money and we don’t earmark it for “baby” expenses.

You are not "exempt" @housewife, your OH would just rather not pay the tax. If you are SAHM as your username implies you should be claiming as it will effect your eligibility for state benefits in your own right should they be needed. FWIW I think it should still be a universal benefit.

YANBU

only in a perfect world could we put away that money for savings every month!

Ask her where your savings pot is from all the child benefit she saved for you.

That’s a very old fashioned view from your mum. My mum is 70 and we were chatting about child benefit etc the other day and she said when I was little it was the done thing to put it into a savings account or keep it separately. Before women had as many rights as they do now it used to be the one bit of money paid to them that they could squirrel away for a rainy day. Now everyone just uses it like all other income. Ours just goes into the main joint account.

@MrsJayy I get £82 and so many pence every fourth Monday

Food is an essential! It’s not as of you are using it for a manicure.

Go ahead and spend it, it’s your money and is there to h op with the day to day expenses of being a parent.

Ignore your mum

Child benefit just gets paid into the bank account every four weeks and is part of the family pot of money. Some of this pot of money goes into savings and then when DH does his tax return each year we pay back a chunk of the child benefit we received. Of course the neighbours with a higher income than us but split between both of them don’t have to pay back any of theirs.... but that’s a different thread....

I think she thinks because me and husband are eating that food, it's not been used correctly!!!

But you'd have plenty of money to buy your "own" food if you weren't spending it on raising your DC. With the greatest of respect, she's batshit.

If it is to feed your child then I see no issue.

Did you get a big payout from your mom when you got to 18?

Wish I had been in a position to save mine but it just went into the pot!

CB is not to save for the kids. It's to pay for their upbringing!

I get £192.40 every 4 weeks and it absolutely goes into the pot with everything else. I do pay for music lesson, dancing lessons, uniform and very many other things that vastly exceed this amount so I feel no guilt about it being part of the general household budget

I feel like if people can save all their CB in a named account for when the child grows up (and not just a rainy day or big ticket item) they probably don't need it in the first place.

oh god dont let the conservatives know a few save this for their child,that will be another cut as obviously people dont need it

it all goes into the general pot here,always has

Ha! Your mother is deluded, it's for helping you to raise your child now not to give them in the future. If someone can afford to bank it and not use it, then they probably shouldn't be claiming it in my opinion.

Ours just goes into the pot to pay for day to day living.

Why are you even discussing this with your mum? Just manage your finances as you see fit.