Did anyone else do NOTHING with the £250 Child Trust Fund

[WarblingEttie]

I just left it where it was and need to find out where it is as DS turns 18 on December 🤔

What did everyone else do?

Couldn't you have invested just 20 mins to sort it in all these years?

I get monthly or annual statements I think about mine. Otherwise not a clue

Left it. DS is 18 next month and it's currently worth £781.
I don't know if he's leaving it or moving it into his savings, we need to look at the leaflet they've sent us.

Have you not had updates? We got them from time to time, possibly annually and definitely one before DS turned 18 with details of how he could access it. We added nothing at all. It was just short of £1,000 iirc.

Left it alone and saved into an account we could control because we had no idea if 18 year old Ds would blow it. He got the CTF last year and it was £1200. However they did send us updates so we could see the pot growing and the forward forecast.

You can track it down here.

www.gov.uk/child-trust-funds/find-a-child-trust-fund#:~:text=If%20you're%20a%20parent,if%20you%20claim%20child%20benefit.

Added about £60 every month. Well, it started out less than that but it added up. It's about £13k now

I would’ve preferred to get the cash upfront rather than locked away for yrs and yrs. maybe then my dd could have had some treats when she was younger. We were in the awful bracket of ‘too rich’ for benefits whilst always being completely skint. As it is now, she will get about £700 when she leaves college. She will probably buy a phone 🤷🏻‍♀️

I get statements every now and then from the auto selected provider otherwise I wouldnt have a clue

We moved and i have to chase up. They want copies of birth certificates etc to proove who we are so have never got round to sorting. Must do it!!

I did nothing as well and ds got 500 pounds which he was very happy with and spent on car insurance

Ours was over £1000 last time I saw a statement (to come out in summer). Planning to use it towards a little car for him

Why bother posting if you're going yo be judgemental and not helpful?

Don't know why that's to be sneered at its not the government's fault your child wants to spend it on a phone.

Never touched ds's and he got 1200 quid. Spent it in months on take aways and clothes. Glad I hadn't put any in tbh.

Mine for DS 18 in January went into a Natwest scheme. Found old paperwork and Called them the other day and it's worth almost £2k now!

At least he got free clothes and takeaway out of it

I transferred the account (twice actually) and at some point I made a standing order of £10 a month into it. A tiny amount I know but we are low earners and sometimes even that was a struggle. It now has over £2,500 in it and once he turned 18 was put into an ISA. I still do the £10 a month, he does occasionally ask about how much is in it. It will hopefully go towards a house deposit or something one day.

I mean our contributions started out less. Still pretty pleased with it.

I may have misinterpreted your use of the 🤷🏻‍♀️ emoji.

My dd13 has hers invested. Currently has £8k in it. It was moved a few years ago and we put money into another kids account and have added to it every time it got to £500 we’d add it. Dd11 missed out on it, but we have an account in trust for her too, so she technically doesn’t miss out.

DS put his towards a gaming computer. When they started the scheme I didn’t trust the govt not to fuck it up, abandon it or raid it for their own ends, hence why we added nothing. Those that did and got a good return - brilliant! I’m sure it’s all been useful to that generation of dc who had it, whatever they choose to spend it on.

We have added monthly to dd and she has a very large amount to be used towards uni or for a deposit.
Moved it out of the child trust account before she was 16 so we can have control over it and it not pass to her at 18 although she is very sensible and understood why it shouldn't be wasted and how lucky she is.

Tbf I probably would have done the same at that age 😅 😂

One of mine got a CTF the other didn't.
Add that to the fact we don't believe in giving 18yos free access to large sums of money.
We therefore 'did nothing' and DD2 has ended up with ~£1200. We've said it is to go towards a car or deposit for renting in due course.