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Original poster

Child trust find gone down 1.5K

117 replies

Orangeblossom78 · 26/03/2020 20:19

Since last year. It was valued at 11K last year and was told would be around 15 when they turned 18 (DS is 15, birthday hence the statement)

It now says valued at 8.5, so has gone down 1.5K since last year.

Is this due to the current situation, any others the same and will it be like to improve? Starting to wish had changed it to an ISA. It is meant to be for the DC to help towards university at 18

OP posts:
eaglejulesk · 26/03/2020 21:35

Anything based on shares has gone down. Don't panic, it will rise again. I agree - don't look at it until things improve.

Original poster
Orangeblossom78 · 27/03/2020 07:38

Speaking of this year, we have an endowment policy due to pay off the mortgage in 3 months. It was on target and enough to pay off the mortgage at Christmas, fingers crossed that is OK. It is not a large mortgage bit still, worrying.

OP posts:
coconuttelegraph · 27/03/2020 07:45

You need to listen to Martin Lewis, the only time the value of the fund is relevant is the day you cash it in, it doesn't matter what it is on all the other days

It's like the price of your house if you're a home owner er, it can go up and down but until the day you want to sell it all the other prices are irrelevant.

No one can tell you what the stock markets will do tomorrow never mind in 3 years time.

Original poster
Orangeblossom78 · 27/03/2020 07:47

It is due to finish in 3 months time not 3 years (the endowment)

OP posts:
cologne4711 · 27/03/2020 07:54

You can blame David Cameron's government for this. When they were set up they had a "lifestyling" (not sure of term actually) option which meant that once they got to 14 the funds would gradually be moved out of cash to protect them. The government decided to do away with that. I suspect my son's has done the same nosedive. Fortunately we have cash savings so when he needs it we can lend him the money if he needs to more quickly and wait for the CTF to recover. We have been paying into it monthly so at the moment we are benefiting from pound cost averaging.

cologne4711 · 27/03/2020 07:55

PS I had Centrica shares which were worth about £2 at one time. When I looked this week they were 47p :( I am not sure they will ever recover as they weren't doing very well anyway, but I'll just leave them there and maybe one day they will.

3ofusnot2 · 27/03/2020 07:59

OP I'm in the same position as you; DD is 15, her unit trust stakeholder CTF went down in value from nearly £13k to £10k. She cannot access it for 3 years and so I'm hoping the market recovers by then. I'll only start being sad about it in 2 years' time if it has still not recovered by then.

Original poster
Orangeblossom78 · 27/03/2020 08:02

3 we will just have to keep fingers crossed a lot can change in 3 years

OP posts:
CuriousaboutSamphire · 27/03/2020 08:04

Spare a thought for all of those with pensions who were hoping to retire in the next year or two!

Being so close and having this drastically reduce the fund has been a very sobering thought!

Adviceneededplease9 · 27/03/2020 08:08

You can change it over to a cash savings account with forms from the bank. If that’s something you’d feel safer with then I’d keep an eye out for when it improves and get it done! Both of mine are in cash savings, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable paying monthly into a stocks and shares.

cologne4711 · 27/03/2020 08:10

I hope that anyone with pension funds who is within 5 years of retirement has been moving them gradually out of shares and into cash.

augustusglupe · 27/03/2020 08:14

Yep, pension fund here and it has indeed been decimated.
Luckily haven’t got all eggs in one basket, but still..
I stopped checking it about 10 days ago, far too depressing.

Sackofspuds · 27/03/2020 08:14

I think you might need an IFA. The standard govt. ISA is a Dreadful. DH moves ours as soon as he could and they grew a lot more. Having said that the current situation has had an effect and it will come back. Not sure how long but it will. imho. X does Martin Lewis have any advice?

Lordfrontpaw · 27/03/2020 08:15

It will rise again and if you have regular payments into schemes they will be buying shares at a lower price so it will even out eventually. Just hang in there.

We’ve been there before remember!

bobbiester · 27/03/2020 08:20

Absolutely do NOT change it over to cash now. This would just "crystallize" your losses. At the moment as another poster has pointed out you haven't actually lost anything.

Lordfrontpaw · 27/03/2020 08:22

It’s creeping back up a little (I track one of mine) but I expect it to drop again before it rises.

middleager · 27/03/2020 08:24

I have twins. One has always had the account with a bank and now in an isa style account.

The other in a stocks and shares account.

We wanted to compare how they performed over the years. My children are nearly 14 now and the stocks and shares one has been really disappointing anyway.

I daren't look at the stocks and shares based one now. We have saved regularly and are on average salaries

We always said if one performed better we would even them out.
Our intention was to reach 10k each by university age otherwise we could not afford to send two at the same time. There was around 6-7k so I dread to think what it looks like now.

Greenpop21 · 27/03/2020 08:25

DH’s pension dropped £Ks but will recover. Luckily his retirement is over 15 years away. His stocks and shares are also feeling very sorry for themselves but it’s a temporary blip, we hope.

ZarkingBell · 27/03/2020 08:25

Stocks and shares go up and down. That's what they do.

Why worry about something you won't be realising for three years? Everything could change between now and then.

TheStuffedPenguin · 27/03/2020 08:26

Of course it has gone down . Funds are running about 10 - 15% down currently although obv it varies due to investments .

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 27/03/2020 08:27

If you’re in it long term. then try not to worry.

I’ve lived through two crashes, 1987 (IIRC) and 2008. OK, this one is different, but so far markets have always (eventually) risen again.

Buy low, sell high, is the standard advice. Standard DO NOT advice is to panic and sell during a crash.

Anyone likely to need the money in the short term will be better sticking to cash ISAs or ordinary savings accts, though.

With interest rates on savings so pathetic now, Premium Bonds might not be a bad idea, either. Safe, tax free (on any winnings) and easy to cash in whenever you like.

billybagpuss · 27/03/2020 08:28

I've had regular emails from my investment company who have my pension and ISA both of which have plummeted over the last month. They have been reinvesting in different stock while the prices are low so I expect it to bounce back once the world gets back on track, I am fortunate in that I don't need it for another few years though. It already started a little recovery yesterday.

starsparkle08 · 27/03/2020 08:29

My sons Isa has dropped £700 from £3000. He’s 8 and can access it from 18 and I hope that things change as I’ve been saving £20 a month with occasional top ups since he was 6 months old

OnceUponAThread · 27/03/2020 08:29

There's a couple of things to mention here.

Firstly - everyone is right that shares have taken a hit and should recover. If the trust isn't needed for three more years it should be fine.

Secondly - absolutely don't move it now. You'll crystallise the losses and lock them in.

Thirdly - if you have been paying since your child was born, I expect you haven't actually lost any of the money you've invested, just some of the returns. The dip isn't big enough to wipe out all the gains you've made over the last decade. If you want to reassure yourself, count up how much you've actually paid in over the years, and compare it to what's in there now.

Also - to the people saying cash is safer, that's simply not true. Interest rates on cash savings are so poor that they're lower than inflation. They're also about to drop substantially. Once you've added up what you've actually paid in versus what you've got now, work out the total percentage change. Average savings accounts are about 0.75%. If you've done better than that then the investments were a good idea.

Comparing what you have now with what you had last week and calling it a loss is meaningless, since it ignores the fact that what you had last week includes all the lovely returns from the past XX years. You need to look at what you've saved vs. what you've got.

If you'd invested it all this year you would have lost some of what you paid, but that's not what's happening here.

potter5 · 27/03/2020 08:33

Have seen my pension pot lose £11K since this virus pandemic started. Have moved to cash fund to stop it losing any more.

If market picks up can go back to original plan.
At least it will stop losing money now!