To think Child Benefit goes into the family kitty?

[summerfish]

I was talking to a friend yesterday, and she said that she saves all of her child benefit in a special account, which she will give their children when they are 18.

I have never done this at all! Child benefit goes straight into an account which my husband and I use for family expenses. Also I have no idea how this would work practically, as the first child would presumably get a much larger slice of the pie, owing to the fact that the second child gets less CB! Not to mention, the fact that I have to pay my child benefit back via my self assessment in any year that I earn over a certain amount.

AIBU To think that child benefit is to be used for every day expenses?

It totally depends if you can afford not to use it. If you can, then I’d save it.

Mine just goes into the pot and used for everyday stuff

Mine doesn’t - I save it for the kids. The eldest has more at the moment but assuming child benefit continues the youngest will catch up when we only receive it for him.
We’re in a position where we can do this. If we weren’t it would go towards expenses

YANBU to do what you do, and she is not BU to do what she does 🤷‍♀️

I don't need our CB for day to day expenses - it's saved in a separate account and used for Christmas.

It goes in the family pot in our household!

I think it depends on your financial situation. If you can afford to save it then that’s fabulous. I’d personally split it equally between all my children or top up the younger ones but maybe families use it in the general pot.

Ours goes in the general pot, when I was a single mum I relied on that extra money to help cover all bills. We still have it go into our account and it “pays for” the clubs and classes the kids do.

We also have savings for each of our kids which we add birthday and Xmas money to while they’re under 10

If I was rich enough I'd save it for my kids. Alas, I'm not.

It is to be used however you want/need to use it. I have always saved it for the children. I too pay it back via self assessment. I feel fortunate I have been able to afford to do this for my children. No judgment if you can’t, obviously. It is not at all difficult to work out the split of it to make it fair though. That is an odd objection to saving it.

I don’t save the money for the children when they are older but I do “save” it for school uniforms/birthdays/extra child expenses x

Your friend is in the luxurious position of not having to worry about money. good for her.

As for the rest of us, mine appreciated eating well when they were young and it made all the difference in the world to do so.

I usually save mine to spend on new clothes/shoes/uniform and towards Christmas and birthday presents.

We do have a savings account for each child and put £10 in per month. We could afford to save all the CB but savings rates being so low at the minute, it makes more sense to put more money towards other things than saving capital that will devalue with inflation

We are reasonably well off and could afford to save it, I suppose, but it never occurred to me that that was usual - particularly as often I have to pay it back.

I save my son's but I only have one child. If I had two I'd split it two ways. Or, I might end up spending it, as having two children is considerably more expensive.

I used to save mine for school shoes and other stuff for them.

@howfarwevecome

Your friend is in the luxurious position of not having to worry about money. good for her.

As for the rest of us, mine appreciated eating well when they were young and it made all the difference in the world to do so.

Yes, I should have caveated this with the absolute understanding that for many there is no choice about spending or saving. That was my bad, apologies.

If you can afford to save it why wouldn’t you? My mum saved ours as well as not letting us fritter away all our bday and Xmas money and it really added up over the years. Basically helped us get on the property market!

You do you.
I take the money divide by three and deposit in my children's ISAs for when they're 18.

Look what's happening now. God know what's shot show our children will be facing in the future. I am doing everything possible now to give them a good financial foundation.

It's changed over the years. In the early years, it was needed to go in with everything else. Now, it's used specifically for kids things outside our usual budget and savings for the kids comes out of general money.

Op whatever you do, if you are going over £50k is lay back in self assessment. Pay additional pension contributions as it is free effectively

It's still going into her family kitty, lots of people do this. It just happens to be the case that the amount that she puts away for her DC when they are older, which comes out of the family kitty, is the same as what she gets in CB.

If her CB went into her main account and she separately put away £20 pw into her DCs savings account, you wouldn't give it a second thought, and you only see it as an issue because she's described it as 'saving the CB'.

Don't you have savings for your DC? You probably need to, especially if you expect/hope that they go to university as you will be expected to contribute quite a significant amount to their living costs, seeing as you're a higher earner, their maintenance loan will be reduced due to this and you will be expected to make up the shortfall.

We put ours into a joint savings account for the kids, we haven't always done this as not always been able to afford not to add it to the family pot and will continue to do so until circumstances change but the current plan is they will share is 50/50 to go towards a flat/house deposit

I save mine for our child. We are only having one child.

God knows what the financial situation will be like for him and his generation in the future so we want to give him as much of a head start financially as possible.

We don’t receive child benefit as we earn too much but I’d always just use it as everyday money, that’s what it is intended for.

It's means-tested already.

Beyond that, there are no restrictions on how you spend it, and nor should there be.

My mum saved the cb she received for my much younger sister and gave her it as a £10000 house deposit - if you can afford to save it, it is a fairly painless way to save..