AIBU to ask how much your child has in savings and what age they are

[Hmmmmminteresting]

I'm being nosey for comparison reasons I guess.
4yo has £2,300. I feel like in the grand scheme of things it's rubbish. Once we have paid bills, extra off mortgage, paid into our pensions etc he gets what's left which isn't a lot. That figure includes bday and Xmas money too but we don't have a big family.

£48 billion and 6 months.

Surely most parents have their children's savings in accounts that they also have access to? Our DC have named accounts but we have access so plan is to withdraw all but £500 or so before they get full control of the account and give it to them when they want driving lessons/house deposit etc.

@WhoWouldHaveThoughtThat brilliant response!!

Peppers and I am not sure you are allowed to do that as children get a tax reduction on interest they earn. If you could do that then everyone would put their savings in their child’s name.

DC1 (age 13) - £650
DC2 (9) - just under £400

Lone parent, DC1 has complex SN and I can only manage a small p/t job around school hours - totally unable to save anything for them. The savings are from the time I was still married.

These threads are wild to me. I grew up in a council estate and nobody I knew had savings at all we are a big group still that are friends and none of us got any money when we turned 18 or whatnot! Not that saving is bad, sounds lovely, but you seem to be stressing about something that many people never do.

@Pepperwand We have 3 accounts for DD, Junior ISA which can only be accessed by her at 18, Kids Regular Saver (good internet) and Kids Saver. I think we can access the latter two.

Interest not internet!

Mine have about £300 each which is from their nanny, my mum.

As a family we have £770 so I think you’re being a bit silly tbh.

@WhoWouldHaveThoughtThat

Three year old, no savings, she hasn't even bothered to get a job yet.

I bet she expects you to do all her cooking, washing and cleaning too

@Carycy not sure about others, ours is a Nationwide savings account paying I think 2.5%, you can withdraw from it but if you do more than once in a financial year you lose the beneficial interest rate.

Those irresponsible three year olds that haven't even started a pension fund yet. They'll be working full time till they are at least 105.

I know lots of people on council estate who save into pots and envelopes for all type of reasons.

Some is for their kids. Even just to help with driving lessons.

Different people do different things, across the spectrum and at all income levels.

Lots of lower paid ethnic minorities despite earning less over their lifetimes than an so called typical English/white person, spend less and save more for their kids as is their culture. That's is a generalisation but broadly true.

Some people are naturally frugal, even a few pounds a week add a up over 18 years. £20 per month plus around 500 gift money from relatives is doable on low income for some and that is a savings account of £5k for an 18 year old. Imagine if we still had interest rates of 6 and 8% for children's accounts.

Almost 3.

Nothing.

We just about manage to cover all the bills. Maybe we’ll try to save him something after we’re done with nursery fees, but no chance before that.

It's just mindset, I was bought up to save and if I have a tenner, I save £1.

You don't need to spend everything that you have, many people on middle and higher incomes, say they cannot save when in effect they just do not want to.

Thats fine and up to them.

@Carycy of course you can do that. For most children's accounts, the parent/trustee has complete access until they turn 18 and can transfer money in and out and do what they want with it. It's one of the reasons I'm happy to put a bit extra in on the months I have some extra money - I know if we have a financial emergency in the future that we could access that money, although obviously I hope we never have to.

When the kids were little birthday money and cheques went into their passbook.accounts. I added bits and pieces when I could. When they were about 8 or so cheques went in there, cash they could choose what to buy. One dipped into buy a camera, another a dog, another a world challenge trip. Older 2 paid for driving lessons Even though they are over 18 I've stayed as trustee rather than swapping it to them as then they're not tempted to take it out, but if they'd wanted control.at 18 then they could, it's their money. Think they maybe had around 3000 each.

Preteen. About 5k in trust fund. And I do save child benefit too but don't know how much in that account.

My daughter is now 14 and I transferred her child trust fund to a children's bond with NSI which now has about £8300 in and she has a NatWest savings account with about £800 in it. This is all separate from her normal bank account which has about £375 in it.

my 2 are 8 and 15
8 year old has 1200 and 15 year old has 1500
I'm not too worried about savings for them as we'd rather use any spare income to give them good life experiences as they are growing up, they tend to just put away Christmas and Birthday money. They should receive a decent amount of inheritance from family members and ourselves to help with house deposits etc.

I have 4 teenagers. The eldest two had 5k saved in child ISA's which they got when they turned 18. Ds1 blew his in the first few months of Uni which I was mortified over. DS2 has not touched his and is now almost 20. It does some of them no good to suddenly have access to money at 18. My eldest ds had a bit of a gambling habit for a while and I suspect this was where some of it went. He is now working all hours in his Uni holidays to save up as he has nothing to fall back on. When the time comes for them to buy a first house we will give them some of our savings, but I'm glad we didn't save more for them in their own accounts.

I have two 17 year olds - they have usually around £200-£500 to play with - earnings and pocket money. They have £1000 each from their Gov trust funds and the rest - we have squirreled away under our name - to give or keep depending on how life goes for them - enough to pay their uni fees or a deposit on a flat when the time is right.

8 year old has £9k and 5 year old has £6k. Mainly gifts from grandparents.

£0 - happy spending money now making lovely memories.

DS is 18 months and has about £2000. He was given money at birth and when he turned 6 months we decided to put away £100 a month and want to do this for our other child (not yet conceived) for them to be able to purchase a home one day hopefully but you never know what may happen.

I wouldn't worry though, I went to university with my very own savings. My parents didn't have the means to save for me, so I worked from the age of 15. There is no shame in not being able to save for your children as long as they are fed, loved and have a roof over their head.